“His track is with No Man’s,” said She Wolf. “I have followed them both to this place.”
“The tracks are of the same age,” said Maku. “They were doubtless running together on the same hunt.”
“Then let us follow them together,” said She Wolf. “Have done suckling,” and she looked up and smiled at Maku. “He would drain me as dry as a bone if I would let him,” she said.
“The girl, too, is always hungry,” said Maku with pride.
“They are of an age,” said She Wolf. “It may be that one day—”
And so talking and gossipping pleasantly, as women will, even when anxious, they waded across the brook and followed the broad trail of No Man and Strong Hand.
But when the trail ended they found nothing but bones, and not the whole of a skeleton at that, for the wolves snarling, had carried away many of the lesser bones. They found Strong Hand’s bones under the tree where he had died, but some wolf had carried off the blood-smeared arrow that had killed him. When the women knew that they were alone in the world, they beat their breasts and howled, and threw themselves repeatedly upon the ground.
All day they wailed for the hunters who would not come any more, and in the dark they scraped out a hollow on the hill side, and collecting the bones of No Man and Strong Hand, placed them therein like the bones of brothers and covered them with earth and stones and tears.