“Ah,” he said, his gaze slowly focusing upon me; “the long road. I started south before the young grasses appeared, going to see my people, the Oglalas, again. Maybe there would be soldiers, so I rode nights, slept days. No soldiers. I saw the new iron road [Northern Pacific] that the Wasichus had made, and for a while I was afraid to cross it. My horse was afraid too; but we crossed it on the run. I was hiding when the great iron horse went by snorting smoke and pulling many big wagons. I rode down across the flat-lands, past the White Buttes and Bear Butte and Pa Sapa. “When I came to Smoky Earth [White] River, my mind was forked. Maybe I would go over to the Miniconjous on the South Fork; maybe I would go to the Oglalas on White Earth Creek. I went to the Miniconjous, and I was a stranger. People were talking about the Wanekia [the Messiah] who was coming soon, they said. He was coming from where the sun goes down, and all the Wasichus would disappear like smoke when he came; and there would be a new heaven and a new earth for Lakotas. I did not believe it. I thought they were all _witko_.” “And Tashina Wanblee, Grandfather,” I urged when he had been silent overlong. “Surely you went there to see her.” “She was not there,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner, fixing his crinkled look upon me. “Too many snows and grasses. She had a Hunkpapa man. Living up on Grand River with Sitting Bull’s people; five snows ago, they told me. “I came to the Oglalas here on White Earth Creek, and I was a stranger, at first, for I was not a young man any more, and they did not know me. It was not good. Red Cloud living in a square Wasichu tepee made of wood. _Akichita_ wearing the blue coats of the Wasichu. All the people waiting for Wasichu food, like hungry dogs, and talking about the Wanekia. Some said he was coming right away, like a whirlwind across the prairie. No more Wasichus. The good days coming back and all the buffalo. I did not believe it. I thought they were all _witko_. There was a big ache in my breast and I wanted to go back to Grandmother’s Land; but when I thought I would go, the ache got bigger. Then Pahuska came. You know Pahuska?” “Everybody knew him, Grandfather,” I said. “We called him Buffalo Bill. He was a great Wasichu chief, great hunter, great warrior. And you went with his big show to Paris.” “Ah,” the old man agreed. “It is so. Pars, Pars; it is what they called that country. It is so. He wanted Lakota warriors to ride and play war and dance, so that the strange people across the great water could see. He would give us _maza ska_ [white metal, money] to do this. When I heard about the great water and the strange peoples yonder at the sunrise, I knew I must go, for it was what she told me before she went home.