“Old-man-of-the-north may send much snow,” Little Eagle told him, “but it won’t matter. In a few days much of it will melt. Then we can travel easily.”
“If Old-man-of-the-north sends one snow, he will send others,” Angry Wolf protested. “We may be caught on the prairie.”
“This will be the last snow of this moon,” Little Eagle stated with certainty.
Angry Wolf seemed much encouraged by Little Eagle’s words. He took his quiver of arrows and began smoothing some of the arrows. Little Eagle spent his time rewrapping the hand grip on his bow. About midday the snow slackened, and soon afterward it almost stopped. Little Eagle stood up and looked about. In some places drifts of snow had been piled high. In others, the ground had been swept almost bare. Although the wind was cold, rays of sunshine filtered through the clouds.
“I’m going to see about our horses,” Little Eagle announced.
“I’ll finish scraping my arrows unless you want me to go with you,” Angry Wolf decided.
“I’ll go alone,” Little Eagle answered. “They aren’t far away.”
However, Little Eagle walked a considerable distance from camp without finding a trace of the horses. He couldn’t even find the trail they had left when they wandered away. When the sun was getting low in the western sky, Little Eagle turned back toward camp. On the way back, he wondered what words he would use to tell Angry Wolf so that the other boy would not be too alarmed at the danger of their situation. Little Eagle didn’t try to hide from himself the fact that they were in grave danger. Here in the middle of the prairie, with no horses, they might not be able to get enough game to keep them alive through the winter.
Oddly enough, Angry Wolf was not greatly disturbed when Little Eagle announced that he hadn’t been able to find the horses.
“They probably drifted ahead of the storm,” Angry Wolf said calmly. “In the morning we’ll both look for them.”