With trembling fingers the women bound blankets closely across the doors of the lodges, in the hope of barring out the black spirit that wandered about the village. Vain hope! Through the walls of the strongest lodge crept the subtle spirit. One night the sound of a wild voice crying through the storm beat into the lodges: “Washkahee has cried to Wakunda [God] and lo! Washkahee has dreamed! Only a tuft of hair from the head of the white bison can save us! So spoke the dream to Washkahee; who will seek the white bison?” It was as though the winter wind had found words! The people, huddled about their fires, knew the voice to be that of the big medicine-man, Washkahee, yet they did not move. The bravest had become weak as a child at the back of a squaw. That night Nu Zhinga, lying in the lodge of his mother, heard the cry that came out of the storm; and when he slept he dreamed. He had walked far across the white prairie and his legs were aching with toil and his heart with despair. Then there broke upon his dream a mighty roar, and lo! he saw, charging down upon him, the white bison, tossing the crusted snow from its lowered horns. “Tae Ska! Tae Ska!” (white bison) Nu Zhinga cried, and was awakened by his own voice. So in the early light of the morning, Nu Zhinga took down the bow and arrows of his father, and wrapping himself in a buffalo robe, he strode out into the prairie with his tame wolf trotting at his heels. To him the dream was an omen. Might he not find the white bison, and thus drive death from among his people? As he walked, the dream that had ever crept like a slow music through his blood, grew into the swaying fury of a battle-song. He timed his brisk steps with a joyous chant that echoed up the frosty valleys. He would find the white bison! Then his people would shout his name without derision. Gunthai would be glad; Tabea would be glad. Tabea! The word was music. But meanwhile in the village thicker and thicker fell the invisible arrows of the Terror; and in the lodges where they fell dwelt the cry of agony and delirium and the muffled shriek of death. The old woman Gunthai and the cripple Tabea were not spared. The old and the young, the weak and the strong, the brave and the cowardly found no spell to ward away the stroke of the hidden Hand. At length the fear of the tribe grew into a frenzy. It needed but an incident to lash it into madness. One evening as the night crept westward across the hills, a brave leaped upon a pony and yelling sent the frightened animal flying up the valley. He was fleeing from the curse that hung over the village. Then the fear became a madness. The people rushed from their lodges and, fighting for the nearest pony, fled after the lone rider who had disappeared into the night.