“Stop the noise, you little sharp-nosed thief! Your whining will bring all the fox family here to ask questions why I have shut you up. Here is all you get this day,” he added as he tossed the fat through the crack. “Many days will go before you are out. Twice you have been a thief, and this time you will be a long time behind the rock so that you will learn that it is not good to steal the dried meat from Cho-gay.”
Kaw and Wongo watched this performance with great interest, and the little bear wanted to ask many questions, but he feared the teasing remarks that would surely follow. As it turned out, he heard all that he wanted to know without asking.
After the fox had been silenced with the scraps of fat, two other prisoners were visited and fed; one an old mountain sheep, and the other a young bobcat. At the hole, or small cave, where the sheep was confined, the Indian boy spoke to his prisoner:
“Old Twisted-horns, three more days and you will again run over the hills as honest people run, but if you again steal corn from me your skin will become a covering for the floor in the cave of Cho-gay.” The old sheep made no reply, but ate what was given him in sullen silence.
At the prison of the bobcat the Indian boy peered in through the crack beside the slab of rock that served as a door, and then picked up a rope of stout buckskin that ran into the prison from the outside. As he pulled it there came an angry snarl from within.
“So!” exclaimed Cho-gay. “You are still filled with anger. I will not take the rope from your neck until you speak more softly. I know the hole is too small for you, but here you shall remain until old Twisted-horns is free. Then you will go into his house, but you shall not be free until Cho-gay has taught you to keep the laws of Timbertangle.”
As he returned to his work in front of his cave, the Indian boy remarked to his callers, “While Cho-gay lives in the Black Hills all thieves that are caught will be made to obey the law of the hills. There was great anger in Big-paw, the cat, when he caught himself in the rope trap, yet he was stealing meat from my cave when the rope went round his head. When I came he wanted to fight, but a twist and a quick pull, and Cho-gay had him without breath to snarl. Now he shall not go free until the hunger in his stomach has eaten up his anger. They that steal shall be punished. Is it not a just law, my brothers?”
“It is just,” said Kaw.
“Yes, it has the sound of being just,” said Wongo, “but when there is hunger and poor hunting, the hunter must have food.”
At this remark, Kaw cocked his head on one side and looked keenly at the little bear. Then he said, “About an hour ago, while I was flying over the twin hills, I saw an aged mountain sheep who had been driven from the flock by the young rams.”