Sid knew vaguely of the Sun Dance. In present days it has degenerated among the Plains tribes into a brutal material thing, a degrading exhibition of suffering and endurance of no spiritual meaning whatever. But in the olden times it had been a thank-offering to the Great Mystery, vowed to Him in memory of some special deliverance from peril or certain death. But for the beneficent intervention of the Great Mystery the man had lost his life; therefore all the original symbolism of the Sun Dance was of a potential death and a resurrection by the grace of the Great Mystery. But why should Honanta give this Sun Dance at this late date, forty years after the massacre at Apache Cave? Because some evidence of Honanta’s physical deliverer had come to light, Sid reasoned. That, too, was necessary for the full ceremony to be performed. If Honanta knew that that humane white officer’s name was Colvin, his own part in the ceremony was obvious. What then of Hano? Could he be destined for some heartrending sacrifice on Honanta’s part? It was possible! Sid decided to rescue him, to get him out of Red Mesa and send him to Big John for help, if he would go. He planned, now, to find out where the medicine lodge was and then act when the time was ripe. Its location was shown him in the most unexpected manner. “She was a wonderful woman--my mother!” exclaimed Honanta suddenly, breaking his reverie and apparently continuing his narrative as if no interruption had occurred. “She escaped with me from that ambulance by night, for she had no wish to be brought a captive to the reservation that was then being allotted to my people. In the mountains we lived, together. She built a hut of sweet grass. She recovered from her wounds, healing them with plants taught my people by the Great Mystery. She fished and hunted like a man, carrying me always with her on her back. She taught me to love and respect the birds, who live very close to the Great Mystery. As I grew up, she taught me to know the animals, our brothers; to sing chants for their souls when I had to kill them for our needs. She taught me to reverence the bears, who are our mother clan by the First Man. Silence, love, reverence--these were my first lessons in life. Through her I learned to know the Great Mystery. To pray daily to Him after the morning bath, silently, with arms outstretched facing the sun, which is the most sublime of His creations. To seek Him on the high places, alone. To see Him at night, through the glory of the stars.” Sid listened, waiting respectfully while the chief paused again, sunk in reverie. As an ethnologist he was learning the true inwardness of the Indian’s soul from a red man’s own lips. For some reason Honanta seemed to have laid hold upon his sympathy and he now poured it all out as to the first white man who really comprehended the fundamentals of that marvelous Indian creed now lost to mankind forever.