He searched our faces with his vaguely grieved apprehensive look. There being no denials, he proceeded: “Sometimes the four-leggeds are wiser than we two-leggeds. A horse will take his man home in the darkest night when the man is lost. If you try to lose a dog, he will find you, even if there is no trail to smell. I do not know how this is, but it is so. I think they are closer relatives to the spirits than we are. Sometimes they can talk too, but not many can understand them. This dog could talk, but only a very little girl could understand, as you will hear. “This man’s name was Sitting Hawk. He was not a noted warrior, but he was a good hunter and took good care of his family, so that they always had plenty to eat. I did not hear his woman’s name, and I am telling only what I know. He had two daughters, one of them not quite a woman yet and the other just a little girl--maybe three winters. They had a little dog, and the little dog had four pups. “The scouts had been out looking everywhere, and there were no enemies; so Sitting Hawk thought he would go hunting and take his family along to have a good time. He liked to do that. There were horses for all the family to ride, and the little dog rode on the pony-drag with her pups when she was not running around smelling things. Afterwhile they came to a place of green grass with plenty of water and wood, and there they made a camp. It was good weather, so they were happy there. Sitting Hawk would go hunting, and his woman and older daughter would stay at home and dry the meat. The very little girl would play with the four pups. That is the way it was, for I do not know how many days. “One day Sitting Hawk came home early and he was very tired. So he ate and lay down in the tepee to sleep awhile. It was not yet dark, so the others were all up. The woman and her older daughter were scraping a deerskin they had staked out on the ground. They did not notice the little girl much, and the dog was letting the four pups eat. Afterwhile the little girl came and asked for something to eat. So the older daughter gave it to her. Soon the little girl came back and asked again for something to eat. The sister gave her some more meat and said, “This is all you can have. You will make yourself sick eating so much.’ “So the little girl went away; and this is what she was doing. There were four men hiding out there in the brush, and one of them could speak our tongue. Perhaps they were kind to the little girl. It must have been so, for she was not afraid. When they told her to get them something to eat and not to tell, that is what she did. Maybe it was like a game she liked to play all by herself.