When he had gone a little distance from the camp, he saw some Sioux, and at the same moment they saw him. He did not run back to the camp; he was too anxious to save himself; but ran across to a little creek, and hid in the brush, not trying to let his brothers know that the enemy were near. The Sioux followed him and found him, and chased him about, and shot at him all day, until near sundown, when they killed him.
The four other men had stopped in camp, but were not so far off but that they could hear the shouts and yells, and they ran off from the camp, and hid themselves and waited. When the other man did not come back, they knew that he had been killed.
The next morning, the four men talked together. One said, “We had better go up and see if he is killed.” Another said, “Yes, let us go there. It may be that we can bury him.” So they went up where he had been, going very carefully, and looking over all the hills as they went, so as to see any enemies if they were about. They found him. He was dead, shot full of arrows, scalped, his whole head skinned, his arms and legs unjointed, his head cut off; he was all cut to pieces. So they thought that there was not enough of him left to bury, and besides, those killed in battle are often left unburied. When they found how it was, they started back to the village, and when they came close to it, one of the men called out, “Pa-hu-ka´-tawa is killed!” He called that out so that the people might know, and might begin to mourn.
When they came into the village, the relations of this man felt very badly because he was killed. It was coming on toward the time when they begin to clear up their patches, to plant the corn, and to hoe, and his father and mother mourned, and said, “Now we have no one to help us hoe. We are old, and he helped us; but now he is gone.” So they mourned for him.
They did not visit the place where he had been killed for some time. It was now spring, and they were planting, and hoeing the corn, and when they got through their work, the whole tribe started out on the summer hunt to get buffalo, as they used to do. They started up the Loup, and when they had traveled along a number of days, they came near the place where the man had been killed. When they got there, the men who had been with him said, “This is the place where Pa-hu-ka´-tawa was killed,” and his father and mother and all his relations went over to the place where he had lain, to gather his bones together and then to bury them. When they got to the place, they could find no bones at all, but the arrows were there, sticking straight up in the ground; all the arrows that had been shot into the body. They wondered that they had not fallen down, for they thought that the wolves might have dragged the body, but when they looked everywhere about for the bones, they could find no sign of them anywhere. It seemed strange to them that the arrows should be there standing up in the ground, and they wondered what had become of the bones. At length they gave up looking for them, and went back to the camp. When they could not find the bones, they went on and hunted buffalo, and killed plenty, and made dried meat. After two months they started back to the village, going down the Platte River. His mother had cried so much for Pa-hu-ka´-tawa, that she had become blind.
One pleasant afternoon they were camped on the Platte. The evening was warm and soft and still. As the sun went down toward the earth, long shining rays seemed to come down from it to the ground. All through the air was a light smoke, and in the west the sky was red. Just as the sun was setting, the people all heard a voice calling from the other side of the river. They listened; and the voice said, “Pa-hu-ka´-tawa is coming back to you.” Then all the Indians jumped up, and ran across the river to meet him, for they thought perhaps he was coming back. When they had got to the other side, they looked about, but could see no one. Then they heard a voice from behind them, on the other side of the camp, which said, “He is coming from here.” They all turned round and ran back to the other side of the camp; but no one was there; and in a little while they heard the voice again, on the other side of the river, saying, “He is coming.” Then they knew it was only a voice and not a person. They stopped running about, and that night they talked about the voice. The next day they went on down the river, and at length got back to the main village. There they stayed six months, and by this time their dried meat was all eaten, and it was toward spring.
The mother of Pa-hu-ka´-tawa had her bed near the door of the lodge on the left hand side, the last bed next to the door. One night, at midnight, he came into the lodge, and touched his mother and said, “Mother! mother!” His mother used to dream of him almost every night, and she thought she was dreaming now. She said, “Oh, my son, do not do this. You are deceiving me again.” He stopped; but presently he touched her again, and pushed her shoulder, and she awoke.
He said to her, “Mother, I am here,” and she reached out and felt him.
She said, “Are you really my son?”
He answered, “Yes, I am your son.”