When the Big Medicine Elk had got his breath an’ wiped the tears from his eyes, he told Moh-Kwa that the only way to bring the Strongarm back to be a hunter from being one of the hunted was for Feather-foot, his son, to cut his throat; an’ for the Blossom, his squaw, to burn his elk-body with cedar boughs.
“An’ why his son, the Feather-foot?” asked Moh-Kwa.
“Because the Feather-foot owes the Strongarm a life,” replied the Big Medicine Elk. “Is not Strongarm the Feather-foot’s father an’ does not the son owe the father his life?”
Moh-Kwa saw this was true talk, so he let the Big Medicine Elk go free.
“I will even promise that the Strongarm,” said Moh-Kwa, as the two parted, “when again he is a Sioux on two legs, shall never hunt the Elk people.”
But the Big Medicine Elk, who was licking his fetlocks where the Catfish people had hurt the skin, shook his antlers an’ replied:
“It is not needed. The Strongarm has been one of the Elk people an’ will feel he is their brother an’ will not hurt them.”
Moh-Kwa found it a hard task to capture Strongarm when now he was an elk with the elk-fear in his heart. For Strongarm had already learned the elk’s warning which is taught by all the Elk people, an’ which says:
Look up for danger and look down for gain;
Believe no wolf’s word, and avoid the plain.