Guy did not know what reply to make to this. He thought it would be a long time before Winged Arrow and others like him could live as they used to do before the whites came in. There was the buffalo. There was a time when the land all around them was fairly black with the countless throngs, but they had all been slaughtered by the hands of the buffalo hunters, either for their hides or just to make a "record," and no power on earth could bring those throngs back again. Winged Arrow should have seen that, so Guy reasoned with himself, and he did not hesitate to tell him so.
"The buffalo are gone, or rather are going as fast as they can, and you have to give up hunting them and follow the white man's road hereafter," said he earnestly.
"That will never be," said Winged Arrow; and his voice fell almost to a whisper. "There was a time when we thought we could kill all the white men and then the buffalo would increase; but those of us who have been to the nation's capital know that the thing is just impossible. When the buffalo goes the Indian will go. We are doomed."
Guy Preston had been pretty well aware of that fact for a long time, but this was the first intimation he had ever had of it from an Indian. Winged Arrow seemed to realize it, and his voice grew husky and faint whenever he spoke of it.
"Ah! Those were happy days," said he, looking out over the prairie, as if in the distance he could see the vision he was conjuring up. "Of course I don't remember it, for I was not born then; but I have heard my father tell of it, and I can almost see the things as they happened then. The people obeyed the chief, hunted the buffalo, and were happy."
"Yes"; said Guy. "You were happy when you were on the warpath. You Indians were always fighting."
"Of course. That was fate. The weaker had to give way to the stronger, and that is just what we are doing now. The Indian believes that there are two spirits that rule mortal man, the Good spirit and the Bad. The Good spirit is all the time working for us. He brings us everything that makes man happy. He brings us good weather, plenty of game, and success over our enemies. The Bad spirit is just the reverse. He brings sickness, drives away the game, and makes us miserable in every way he knows how. He has for a time taken advantage of the Good spirit, and that is just what he is doing for us now. Some day the Good spirit will turn around and get the advantage of HIM, but that will be long after my day."
"What do you think will happen then?" asked Guy, who was much interested in what the Indian said to him.
"When that happens you will see a glorious day for the Sioux Indians," said Winged Arrow, growing animated. "The whites will be driven away from this country forever, I don't know just how it will be done, but it will surely happen; the buffalo will come back, and the Sioux will be monarch of all he surveys."