This encampment had been well out of the line of the forest fire and had not been disturbed by it. Red Knife reached it in the night and came to his father’s lodge. But he did not venture within. He was pariah--outcast--the lowest of the low. His mother gave him food in the morning, but his father sent back the bear’s paws. It was soon known that Red Knife had lost his medicine, and the head of the Crow family could not accept food at his hand. Of course, Red Knife knew it would be useless to make the bear claws into a necklace for the White Antelope. She would look at him less now than before. Besides, the White Antelope remained in her lodge, with one old woman, her nurse, most of the time. There was something very mysterious about the movements of the daughter of the chief. This did not interest Red Knife much at the time, however. He was past thinking of women. His own people looked at him askance. Nobody spoke to him; he was welcome in no lodge, and the very clothing which his mother flung him seemed begrudged. All Indians must harden their hearts against a being so cursed of the Great Spirit that he had lost his medicine! He could enter no council of his tribe; he had no voice in the general affairs; he could join in none of the sports. All that he had done before was forgotten. Even that he had brought low the white chief who had led the pony soldiers to the battle in the coulée counted nothing for Red Knife now. He was outcast. Red Knife could not stand for this long. An Indian does not make way with himself. A suicide wanders forever between this life and that to come, and is never at rest. But Red Knife was nearly desperate enough to resort to this awful finish. At least he determined to go out from among his people and never to return until he had found a new medicine and obtained a new name for himself--in other words, until he could demand the respect of his family and of his tribe. Now he crept out of the encampment, and from a high hill muttered his farewell address to his home and his people. He would not be Red Knife when he returned--if he returned at all. All the encampment knew that, but only one figure stood by his father’s lodge to watch him go. He knew that was his mother, but it was beneath him to notice a squaw! Now this young buck had set forth on a search as great as that for the Golden Fleece or the Holy Grail of old! Had the tribe a Homer, some great saga might have been written regarding the labor Red Knife had set himself. To go forth and kill an enemy and take his medicine was a simple matter. But the medicine of another would surely bring bad luck to the scion of the family of Crow. And to find a man with two medicines--ah! that were a well-nigh impossible task! And, when found, would such a fortunate person be willing to give up his extra medicine? To fight for it might end in the death of the first possessor, and then would the virtue go from the medicine and it become a curse to Red Knife.