To this Williams replied: “Tah-You, what you ask I cannot grant. This medicine house was built for the white man’s doctor by people who do not believe as you do. Those who gave the money would be very angry at me if I let you enter the door.”
The old man’s face fell and his lips worked as he watched the signs made by the white chief.
“So be it,” he replied as he rose. “The white man’s heart is hard. His eyes are the eyes of a wolf. He gives only in his own way. He makes all men walk in his own road. He will kill my son and laugh.”
Williams rose also. “Do not harden your heart to me, friend. I know that much of your medicine is good. I do not say you shall not treat the boy. To-morrow, if he is no better, you can take him to camp. I cannot prevent that, but if you do and he dies I am not to blame.”
The old man’s face grew tender. “I see now that you are our friend. I am content.”
The Reverend Mr. Jones came down upon the agent again, and the nurse and the teachers (though they dared say nothing) looked bitter displeasure. It seemed that the props on which their sky rested, were tottering, but Williams calmly said: “To have the boy die in hospital would do us a great deal more harm than to have him treated by Tah-You. Were you ever young? Don’t you remember what it meant to have your old grandmother come and give you boneset tea and sit by your bed? Robert is like any other boy; he longs for his old grandfather, and would be quieted and rested by a return to the tepee. I will not sacrifice the boy for the sake of your mission. I won’t take any such responsibility.”
“It will kill him to be moved,” said the nurse.
“I’m not so sure of that. Anyhow and finally, these people, under the present ruling of the department, are citizens, and I have no authority to make them do this or that. I have given my consent to their plan—and that ends the matter.”
Early the next morning the father and mother, together with the grandmother, tenderly folded Robert in a blanket and took him away to camp, and all day the missionaries could hear the sound of the medicine man’s rattle, and his low chant as he strove to drive out the evil influences, and some of them were exceedingly bitter, and the chief of the big medicine house was very sad, for it seemed that his work was being undone.