“Do not wail for me. This is the place where my trail ends. This is what was in the mist. Let these whom I love do as they will do.” And when they had bound him to the post they whipped him with elkhorn whips. “Where is your white Wakunda?” they cried, and it was a hate cry. “Here beside us stands the white Wakunda and His Son!” said Wa-choo-bay; and his brow was wet with the sweat of agony. But the whippers did not see, and the whips fell harder. And after some time Wa-choo-bay raised his head weakly to the darkening heavens, for the sun had fallen, and moaned soft words that were not prairie words. Then his head fell forward upon his breast. The whips fell no more. The whippers departed. The sky was like a sheet of frosty metal and the stars were like broken ice. Against the sky hung the thin figure of Wa-choo-bay lashed to the post, and beneath him in the shadow huddled two who sent trembling cries of sorrow into the empty spaces of the snow—a woman and a wolf. IX THE TRIUMPH OF SEHA WHEN Seha had grown to be a tall youth, he said to the old men: “Now I am almost a man; what shall I do?” For being a youth, he dreamed of great things. And the old men answered: “That Wakunda knows; therefore, take yourself to a high hill; there fast and pray until sleep comes, and with it a vision.” So Seha arose and laid aside his garments, and naked, went out on the prairie. When he had gone far, he climbed to the top of a lonely hill, bare of grass and strewn with flakes of stone that made its summit white like the head of a man who has seen many winters. Then he knelt upon the flinty summit, and raising his palms to the heavens, he cried: “O Wakunda, here needy stands Seha!” Four times he uttered the cry, yet there was no sound save that of the crow overhead, and the wind in the short grass of the hillside. Then he fell into an agony of weeping, and wetting his palms with his tears, he rubbed them in the white dust and smeared his face with mud. Then he cast his wet eyes to the heavens, and again raised his hands in supplication. “O Wakunda, Seha is a young man; he would do great things like the old men; send him a vision!” The night came down and still he held his eyes upon the darkening heavens, crying for a vision. But only the coyote answered him. The stars looked out of the east and steadily climbed upward, gazing upon his tearful face. But when the grey of age began to grow upon the forehead of the Night, he grew so weary that he fell forward upon his face and slept. And lo! the vision came! It seemed that the skies were black and fierce as the face of a brave in anger. The lightning glared; and the thunder shouted like a warrior in the front of the battle! Then the cloud split, and through it rushed a mighty eagle with the lightning playing on its wings; its cry was like the shriek of a dying foe and its eyes were bright with the vision that sees far. Its wings hovered over Seha, and it spoke: