Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn had entered one of the lodges immediately after the tumult caused by their arrival had subsided, and Manikawan now followed her mother into another lodge. There were no Indians visible. The moans of the grief-stricken mother, rising above the voices of men in the lodge which Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn had entered, were the only sounds.
The air was bitterly cold, but the tragedy enacting around him had for a time rendered Shad quite insensible to it. When he did finally realise that, standing inactive, he was numbed and chilled, he still lingered a little before joining Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn, dreading to enter the famine-stricken lodges.
At last, however, necessity drove him to do so, and within the lodge he discovered that a council was in progress. In the centre a fire burned, and around it the men, solemn and dignified, sat in a circle. One after another of the Indians spoke in earnest debate. They were considering what action they should take to preserve their lives, and Shad, as deeply interested as any, felt aggrieved that he could not immediately learn the final result of the conference, which came to an end as the sun cast its first feeble rays over the barren ranges that marked the southeastern horizon.
When the council closed the Indians filed out of the lodge, and one, a tall old man, fantastically attired in skins, entered the medicine lodge alone, carefully closing the entrance after him to exclude any ray of light.
Immediately drum beats were heard within the tent, accompanied by a low groaning and moaning, which gradually increased in volume and pitch until presently it became a high, penetrating, blood-curdling screech. This continued for perhaps half an hour, the drum beats never ceasing their monotonous rat-tat-tat.
The shaman, or medicine man, thus working himself into a frenzy, at length believed he saw within the lodge the ghostly form of the particular Matchi Manitu, or evil spirit, responsible for the disappearance of the caribou and the resulting famine.
This spirit's wrath it was believed had for some reason unknown to the Indians been aroused against them. Only the shaman could get into communication with the spirit, and learn from it what course the Indians would be required to pursue to placate its wrath, and remove its curse.
When the appearance of the spirit was announced, the shaman began to supplicate and implore the Matchi Manitu to withdraw from the people the pursuit of Famine; to return the caribou to the land; and to preserve the lives of the dying.
Presently in tones of joy the shaman announced that he had succeeded in enlisting the services of the Matchi Manitu, and with the announcement the din within the lodge ceased, and for several minutes mysterious whisperings were heard.
Suddenly the shaman threw over the lodge, and in a state of exhaustion tottered forward. Still under the influence of the paroxysms into which he had worked himself, he delivered in a wandering, disconnected jumble of meaningless sentences the demands of the Matchi Manitu. These consisted of many unreasonable and impossible feats that the people were required to accomplish before the Spirit of Starvation--the Gaunt Gray Wolf--would cease to follow upon their trail.