Whatever it may have seemed six months before, it was no small triumph now. His task was chiefly in the making of arms, along with the other warriors, and he soon become the equal of any of them. He also practiced with them the throwing of the tomahawk at trees, in which he acquired wonderful dexterity. But his best work was done among the ponies. Often in jest he called himself the horse doctor of the camp. He had studied their ailments and he knew how to cure them, but above all was his extraordinary gift of reaching into the horse nature, a power, derived he knew not whence or how, of conveying to them the sympathy for them in his nature. They responded as human beings do to such a feeling, and, with a word and a sign, he could lead a whole herd from one field to another. This power of his impressed the Sioux even more than his slaying of the monstrous grizzly bear with only a spear. It was a gift direct from Manitou, and they were proud that an adopted warrior of their village should have such a mysterious strength. Will knew now that he was no longer in danger of torture by fire or otherwise. Old Xingudan would not do it. Heraka, who was his superior chief, might return and command it, but Xingudan and the whole village would disobey. Moreover, he was now the adopted son of Inmutanka, a young Sioux warrior with all the rights of a Sioux, and the law forbade them to torture him or put him to death. And Indian laws were often better obeyed than white man's laws. Xingudan kept his repeating rifle, his revolver and his field glasses, but a bow and arrows were permitted to him, and he learned to use them as well as any of the Indians. The valley and the slopes that were not too high and steep, afforded an extensive hunting range, despite the deep snow, and Will brought down with a lucky arrow a fine elk that made for him a position yet better in the village, as he and Inmutanka, his father, were entitled to the body, but instead divided at least half of it among the older and weaker men and women. Despite the favor into which he had come, Will could learn nothing of his location or of the progress of the war between the great Sioux nation and the whites. Yet of the latter he had a hint. Just before the winter closed in on them finally, a young warrior, evidently a runner because he bore all the signs of having travelled far and fast, arrived in the valley. He was taken into the lodge of Xingudan and he departed the next morning with five of the young warriors of the village, the best men they had. When Will referred to their absence he received either no answer or an ambiguous one. Inmutanka himself would say nothing about them, but Will made a shrewd surmise that the runner had come for help in the great war and that the last and uttermost village would be stripped in the attempt to turn back the white tide.