“It is!” they said. “We were in temporary camp. We were resting. The tempest leaped upon us. All was in confusion. The baby wandered away—the snow must have covered him quickly. We could not find him though we searched hard and long. The storm grew. Some of us came on to bring the women and children to camp. Three of us, my brothers and I, remained to look for the boy. We could not find him. He is buried deep in the snow.”
The chief, touched by the woman’s agony, rose in reproof. “Go back!” he said, sternly. “Take other of the young men. Cover every foot of ground near your camp.”
“The night is coming.”
“No matter—search!” commanded the chief.
A party of braves was soon made up. As they rode away into the blast Oma wished to go with them, but the chief prevented her.
All the afternoon she remained in the chief’s lodge crowding close to his feet—listening, moaning, waiting. She was weak with hunger, and shivering with cold, but she would not eat, would not go to her silent and lonely fireplace.
“No, no, father, I will stay with you,” she said.
Swiftly the darkness fell upon the camp. The cold intensified. The tempest increased in violence, howling above the willows like an army of flying demons. The snows beat upon the stout skins of the lodges and fell in heaps which grew ever higher, but the mothers of the camp came one by one, young and old, to comfort the stricken one, speaking words of cheer.
“They will bring him.”
“The brave hunters will find your boy.”