But Will caught the twinkle in Inmutanka's eyes.

"If they propose," he said, "I'll offer good old Dr. Inmutanka in my place. He's nearer their age, and with his medical skill he'll be able to take care of them."

"Inmutanka never had a wife. He always what you call in your language bachelor. Too late to change now."

"But since you've raised this question I'll insist," said Will formidably. "You've been a bachelor too long, and you a great medical man too. Men are scarce in this village, and you must have at least a dozen wives."

"You stop, I stop," said Inmutanka in a tone of entreaty.

"Very good, honored foster-father. It's a closed subject forever. I don't think I'd care to have a dozen stepmothers just now."

The cold remained intense. Everything was frozen up, but game, nevertheless, still wandered into the valley and the warriors continually hunted it. All their bullets, never in great supply, had been fired away in the battle with the wolves, and they relied now upon bow and arrow. Two of the old warriors, attacking a fierce grizzly with these weapons, were slain by it, and though a party led by Xingudan, with Will as one of his lieutenants, killed the monster, there was mourning in the village for several days. Then it ceased abruptly. The dead were the dead. They had gone to the happy hunting grounds, where in time all must go, and it was foolish and unmanly to mourn so long. Will did not believe that the primitive retain grief as the civilized do. It was a provision to protect those among whom life was so uncertain.

A few days later a warrior of the Sioux nation arrived in the valley, suffering from a wound and on the point of death from cold and starvation. He was put in one of the warmest lodges, his wounds were dressed carefully and when he had revived sufficiently he asked for the old chief, Xingudan.

"I was hurt in battle with the white men many, many days' journey away,"

he said, "and the great chief Heraka, knowing I would not be fit for march and fight for a long time, sent me here to recover and he also sent with me a message for you."

"What was the message, Roka (Badger)?"

"It was in regard to the white youth, Wayaka, our prisoner."

"Wayaka has become Waditaka, owing to his great bravery. With only a spear he fought and slew a monstrous grizzly bear that would have killed me the next instant. When we drove off the huge pack of giant mountain wolves his service was the greatest."

"Even so, Xingudan. Those are brave deeds, but they cannot alter the command I brought from Heraka."

"What was the command, Roka?"

"That Waditaka be burned to death with slow fire at the stake, and that other tortures of which we know be inflicted upon him. We lost many warriors in battle with the whites and the soul of Heraka was bitter."

Old Xingudan leaned his chin on his hand and looked very thoughtfully at the fire that blazed in the centre of the lodge.

"The command of Heraka is unjust," he said.

"I cannot help that, as you know, Xingudan."

"I do not blame you, but there is something of which Heraka is ignorant."

"What is it?"

"Waditaka is now the adopted son of the wise and good Inmutanka."

"But the orders of Heraka are strict and stern."

"The rite of adoption is sacred. Until Waditaka himself chooses to change he is a Sioux and must be treated as a Sioux."

"The consent of Heraka was not secured for the adoption."

"It was impossible to reach him. The laws of the Sioux have not been violated. Waditaka is a brave young warrior. The fire shall not touch him. A winter great and terrible is upon us and it may be before it is over that we shall need him much. He is a brave young warrior and few of them are left now in the village. I am old, Roka, and the old as they draw near to Manitou and all the G.o.ds and spirits that people the air, hear many whispers of the future. A voice coming from afar tells low in my ear that before the snow and ice have gone Waditaka, who was born white but who is now a Sioux, the adopted son of Inmutanka, will save us all."

"And does Xingudan see that?"

"Yes, Roka, I see it."

The wounded warrior raised himself on his pallet and a look of awe appeared on his face.

"If thou readest the future aright, Xingudan," he said, "it would be well to save this lad and brave the anger of Heraka, if he be so bold as to defy the law of adoption."

"I am old and my bones are old, but even though he is a chief above me I do not fear Heraka. Waditaka shall not burn. I have said it."

"I have but delivered my message, Xingudan. Now I will sleep, as my wound is sore. I have traveled far and the cold is great."

Will little knew how his fate had been discussed in the lodge, and how his good humor, his acceptance of conditions and his zeal to help had saved him from a lingering and horrible death. Old Xingudan, taciturn though he was and severe of manner, was his firm friend and would defend him against Heraka, or the great war chief, Red Cloud, himself. Will was not only by formal rite of adoption a Sioux, but in the present crisis he was, on the whole, the most valuable young warrior in a village where young warriors were so scarce, owing to the distant war with the whites.

"You have delivered your message, Roka," said Xingudan, finally, "and you have no right to deliver it to anybody but me. Therefore your duty is done. Do not mention it again while you are with us."

"I obey, O Xingudan," said Roka. "Here I am under your command, and now I will exert all my energies to get well of my wound."

Will, meanwhile, relapsed farther and farther into the primitive, all the conditions of extreme wildness exerting upon him a powerful influence. They no longer had bullets and gunpowder or cartridges, but must fight with bow and arrow, lance and war club. It was necessary, too, to defend themselves, as the tremendous cold was driving into the valley more beasts of prey, ravening with hunger.

And yet the primitive state of the youth and those around him was not ign.o.ble. Just as the people of a village twenty thousand years before may have been drawn together by common dangers and the needs of mutual help, so were these. The women worked diligently on the wolf skins, making heavier and warmer clothing, the food supply was placed under the dictatorship of Xingudan, who saw that nothing was wasted. Will, with the superior foresight of the white man's brain, was really at the back of this measure.

To the most active and vigorous men was a.s.signed the task of hunting the great wild beasts which now wandered into the valley, driven by cold and fierce, growing hunger.

The wolves were but the forerunners. Mountain lions of uncommon size and ferocity appeared. An old woman was struck down in the night and devoured, and in broad daylight a child standing at the brink of the river was killed and carried away. Then the grizzly bears or other bears, huge beyond any that they had ever seen before, appeared. A group came in the night and attacked the pony herd, slaying and partly devouring at least a dozen. All in the village were awakened by the stamping of the horses and in the bitter cold and darkness the brave children of the wild rushed to the rescue, the women s.n.a.t.c.hing torches and hurrying with them to furnish light by which their men could fight.

The battle that ensued was fully as terrible as that with the wolves.

The bears, although far fewer than the wolves had been, were the greatest of all the American carnivora, and they resented savagely the attempt to drive them from their food, turning with foaming mouths upon their a.s.sailants, who could not meet them now with bullets, but who fought with the weapons of an earlier time.

Will plied the bow and arrow, and, when the arrows were exhausted, used a long lance. He and Xingudan were really the leaders, marshalling their hosts with such skill and effect that they gradually drove the bears away from the ponies, leaving the animals to be quieted by the women and old men, while the warriors fought the bears. Among these men was Roka, now recovered from his wound, and using a great bow with deadly accuracy. He and Will at length drew up side by side, and the stout Indian planted an arrow deep in the side of a bear. Yet the wound was not fatal, and the animal, first biting at the arrow, then charged. Will struck with the lance so fiercely that it entered the animal's heart and, wrenched from his hands, was broken as the great beast fell.

"Behold!" shouted Xingudan in Roka's ear, "he has saved your life even as he saved mine!"

Not one of the bears escaped, but two of the men lost their lives in the terrible combat, and the strength of the village was reduced yet further. The two men, however, had perished n.o.bly and the people felt triumphant. Will examined the bears by the numerous torchlights. He and Xingudan and Inmutanka agreed that they were not the true grizzly of the Montana or Idaho mountains, but, like the first one, much larger beasts coming out of the far north. Will judged that the largest of them all weighed a full three-quarters of a ton or more, and a most terrific creature he was, with great hooked claws as hard as steel and nearly a foot in length.

"One blow of those would destroy the stoutest warrior, Waditaka," said Xingudan.

"Our bows and arrows and lances have saved us," said Will. "I think they've been driven out of the Arctic by the great cold, and have migrated south in search of food."

"Then they smelled the horses and attacked them."

"Truly so, Xingudan, and they or other wild beasts will come again. The ponies are our weakest point. The great meat-eating animals will always attack them."

"But we must keep our ponies, Waditaka. We will need them in the spring to hunt the buffalo."

"Of course, Xingudan, we must save the ponies."

"How, O Waditaka?"