"Let them take shelter here," he said, "and grow more numerous. It is not to the interest of our people that the big deer should decrease in numbers, and if we are wise we will let live that which we do not need to eat." They saw the wisdom of Xingudan's words and obeyed him. Perhaps there was not another Indian village in all North America which had greater plenty than Xingudan's in that winter, so long and terrible, in the northern mountains. Big game was abundant, and fish could always be obtained through holes in the thick ice that invariably covered the river. Their greatest difficulty was in keeping the horses, but they met the emergency. Not only did the horses dig under the snow with their sharp feet, but the Indians themselves, with Will at their head, uncovered or brought much forage for them. Will understood why such sedulous care was bestowed upon the ponies, which could be of little use among the great mountains. When spring was fully come they would go eastward out of the mountains, and upon the vast plains, where they would hunt the buffalo. Then he must escape. Although he was an adopted Sioux, the son of Inmutanka, and had adapted himself to the life of the village, where he was not unhappy, he felt at times the call of his own people. The call was especially strong when he was alone in the lodge, and the snow was driving heavily outside. Then the faces of the scout, the Little Giant and the beaver hunter appeared very clearly before him. His place was with them, if they were still alive, and in the spring, when the doors of ice that closed the valley were opened, he would go, if he could. But the spring was long in coming. Xingudan himself could not recall when it had ever before been so late. But come at last it did, with mighty rains, the sliding of avalanches, the breaking up of the ice, floods in the river and countless torrents. When the waters subsided and the slopes were clear of snow Xingudan talked of moving. The lodges were struck and the whole village passed out of the valley. The tall youth, dressed like the others and almost as brown as they, who had been known among white people as Will Clarke, but whom the Indians called Waditaka, wondered what the spring was going to bring to him, and he awaited the future with intense curiosity and eagerness.