It was in June and the grass was still green. Herds of ponies were feeding on the swells, and one of the horses I drove lifted his head and neighed; he, too, remembered the old freedom. The sky blazed with light and the hills quivered as if in ecstasy of living. The region was at its best, delusively beautiful. I knew its moods. I knew how desolate and pitiless those swells could be in midwinter, how dry and hot of breath in July.
As we topped the hill I met a man driving a small team to a heavy wagon. He wore a wide hat which lay on his shoulders, and big smoked goggles hid his eyes. As he came opposite I perceived that he was a Sioux, and I called to him in my native tongue.
“Wait, my friend. Where are you going so fast?”
He turned his big glasses on me and said:
“First of all, who are you that speak Lakota so badly?”
“I am Iapi, the son of Shato.”
“Ah!” he exclaimed, with a smile. “In that case you are getting back from school? I know you, for I am Red Thunder!”
Red Thunder! I was silent with astonishment. A picture of him as I saw him in 1876 rose in my mind. Tall and lithe he was then, with keen, fierce eyes, the leader of the war faction among the Yanktonaise, a wonderful horseman, reckless and graceful. Now here he sat in a white man’s wagon, bent in the shoulders and clad in badly fitting agency clothing. My heart was sick as I said:
“Friend, you are changed since the council on the Powder River. I did not know you.”
He took off his glasses and put aside his hat; his smile also passed away. He looked away to the west: