“One evening we stopped for the night and there was not enough meat left to keep us three sleeps longer. The squaws did not sing as they pitched the tepees. They were empty, the braves were empty, and the _zhinga zhingas_ whined like little baby wolves at their mothers’ backs, for the milk they drank was thin milk. No one spoke. The fires boomed up and made the hills sound as with the bellowing of bulls, and the sound mocked us. The dark came down; we sat about the fires but we did not speak. We groaned, for we were very empty, and we could not eat until we had slept. Once every sleep we ate, and we had eaten once. “That night the wise old men gathered together in the tepee of the chiefs and sang medicine songs that Wakunda [God] might hear and see our suffering; then might he send us the bison. “I heard the songs and I felt a great strength grow up out of my emptiness. Then I said: ‘I will go to the fathers and they will send me in search of the bison; and I will find the bison for Paezha that she may not starve.’ I had forgotten myself and my people. I knew only Paezha, for that day I had heard her moan, having nothing more to give. “And I went to the big tepee. I stood amongst the fathers and lifted a strong voice in spite of my emptiness: ‘Give me a swift pony and a little meat and I will find the bison!’ “And the old men sighed as they looked upon me. And Douba Mona, her father, being one of the wise men, said: ‘I see a light in his eye and hear a strength in his voice. Give him the swift pony and the little meat. If he finds the bison, then shall he have Paezha, for well I see that there is something between them. Also he shall have many ponies; I have many.’ “And these words made me full as though I had sat at a feast. “So the next morning I took the swift pony and the little meat and galloped toward the evening. The people did not take the trail that day, for toil makes hunger. “Two sleeps I rode, singing songs and dreaming dreams of Paezha. And on the evening of the third sunlight I stopped upon a hill, and turned my pony loose to feed. I was sick and weak because my emptiness had come back upon me and I had not yet found the bison. I fell upon my face and moaned, and my emptiness sent me to sleep. “When I awoke, someone sat beside me—and it was Black Dog. He breathed soft words. ‘I have come to watch over Half-a-Day,’ he said, ‘because I am older and a bigger man.’ “I spoke not a word, but my heart was warm toward Black Dog, for my dreams of Paezha had made me kind. “‘Well I know,’ he said, and his voice was soft as a woman’s; ‘well I know what Half-a-Day dreams about. And I have come to watch over him that his dream may come true.’ “Then being a young man and full of kindness, I told Black Dog of the look I had seen in the face of Paezha. And he bit his lips and made a sound far down in his throat that was not pleasant to hear. And I fell to sleep wondering much.