Chief Barking Wolf jumped from his horse. He and the warrior stepped over to the slain buffalo. Together they rolled the animal over on its other side. The shaft of the arrow had been broken off as the animal fell on it. Barking Wolf studied the broken arrow for a moment.
“That was a very good shot,” he said, turning toward Bent Arrow, “well aimed, and powerfully driven. But you have lost your good arrow. It is broken.”
“He is to have mine,” Sly Fox said, offering it to Bent Arrow.
Bent Arrow hesitated. The arrow had been given to Sly Fox to keep as a token that he had been on a buffalo hunt. Sly Fox would want it to show to younger boys.
“Take it,” Chief Barking Wolf commanded. “If Sly Fox had not offered it to you, I would have ordered him to break it.”
Chief Barking Wolf mounted his horse.
“You are to go back to camp alone,” he told Sly Fox. “You have disobeyed orders. You are not in this hunting party.”
Without a word, Sly Fox mounted his horse and started back to camp. Bent Arrow felt sorry for his friend, yet he knew that Sly Fox was lucky. Chief Barking Wolf might have ordered a far more severe punishment for the boy’s disobedience.
“Bring the pack horses,” the chief ordered. “The men are ready.”
As many buffaloes as could possibly be taken back to camp had been slain. The hunters had turned back and were butchering the animals. As the boys came to a hunter, they would stop the herd of pack horses and leave those belonging to that warrior. When they came to Flying Arrow, Bent Arrow drove his two horses from the herd and dismounted to help his uncle.