He lifted his pipe of ceremony from the ground at his feet and lighted it with a coal plucked from the fire.
"Can Nadoweiswe tell us about the land across the Sky Mountains?" asked Tawannears.
The little chief dropped his wrinkled, dried-apple visage on his chest.
"No," he answered, after another interval of reflection. "The stories of our wise men say nothing about this Land you seek. But my father was a medicine man, a wakan witshasha.* He was very wise. He had traveled farther than any of our people—although not so far as Tawannears. And he told us the tribes beyond the Sky Mountains said that the Great Spirit lived not far away. He sits in a certain place on the earth, very white and still, with his head in the clouds. And sometimes when he is angry he hurls forth storms, and smoke and flame and loud noises fill the air. But these people never spoke of a Land of Lost Souls."
* Literally, mystery man.
"Yet if the Great Spirit sits there, the Land of Lost Souls cannot be far away," exclaimed Tawannears, with more animation than he had yet shown. "Nadoweiswe has put new courage in our hearts. Now, we can go forward, without fear."
Nadoweiswe shook his head.
"Do not go," he urged. "See, the fire roars here in the midst of us, but without robes we should be cold. Any day, perhaps today, the snow will fall. The land will all be white. Death will be in the wind."
"Nadoweiswe has given us the reason why we must leave his tepee," replied Tawannears. "We have far to go. Already we have lost time. If we stayed by the Teton fires the Winter would pass away and we should have achieved nothing."
"We might steal many horses," argued Nadoweiswe, with a shrewd glance at me. "We will march south and raid the Spanish tribes. There is much to be done in winter."