"I am about to die, friends," he gasped. "Do not try to carry me farther. But go, yourselves; and some day come back for my bones."
He spoke sense. Any one might see that he had only a few hours to live, and that soon his comrades would be carrying only a body across the Staked Plain, where the sun beat hotly and water was far apart.
It was better that they leave him here, at the spring where they might find his bones. So on the water's edge they built a shade for Konate, with a few crooked cedar branches, and bidding him goodby they rode on, into the great Staked Plain.
They expected that they would never seen him again.
What happened now to Konate, he often told, and he told it always the same; therefore it must be true. For the rest of the long day he lay there, with the sun beating down around him, and his mind and body very sick from his wound. He was unable to sleep. The sun set, and the air changed to cool, the twilight deepened to dusk; alone on his hilltop he closed his eyes, and waited for the spirit of the tai-me, or Sun-dance medicine, to bear him to his fathers.
In the star-light he heard a wolf howl, far off. He listened, and the howl sounded again, nearer, from another direction. Then he knew that the wolf had scented him and was ranging to find his spot. That would be bad—to be eaten by a wolf and have one's bones scattered!
Konate groaned. His heart had been strong, until this moment. He had hoped that his bones would be cared for.
Soon he heard the wolf, at hand; there was the soft patter of its pads, and the sniffing of its inquiring nose, seeking him out. And now he saw the wolf, with shining eyes peering into the bough shelter where he lay helpless, unable even to speak.
That was an agonizing moment, for Konate. But lo, instead of jumping upon him, the wolf trotted forward, and gently licked his wounds, and then lay quietly down beside him.
Konate was amazed and thankful. While the wolf lay there, next he heard another sound, in the distance: the shrill eagle-bone-whistle music of the great Sun-dance of the Kiowa nation. The music drew nearer, and he heard the Sun-dance song; and while he listened, strong of heart again, he saw the medicine spirit of the Sun-dance standing before him, at the entrance to the shelter.