Slowly the returning tribe, now dwindled to half its former numbers, toiled up the hill. Only the strong were left, and now the strong were weak. The straggling band of men, women and ponies reached the summit, a pitiful, ragged multitude, and gazed for a moment into the valley. Then a great shout arose above the silent spaces, scintillant under the dawn, as the halting, famished band swooped down the hill to be again at home.
Again the fires roared upward from the lodges, and the voices of a happy people drove away the silence of the winter. There was no longer any disease; the winter and the flight had purged the tribe.
Who had saved them from the black spirits? Could a tribe run faster than the things which are not good?
The sun was at the centre of its short path when the answer to this question of the tribe broke into the lodges where the people sat about their steaming kettles. For it was then that one ran through the village waving a tuft of long, grey hair and startling the ears of his people with a shout:
“See! The tuft of hair from the head of the white bison! It has saved us; for do you not remember the words of Washkahee?”
The people rushed from their lodges and thronged about the man who held the tuft of hair.
“Who has found the white bison?” they cried.
And the answer of him who held the tuft of hair struck the people silent with wonder:
“It was Nu Zhinga, the squaw-hearted; even he who could not dream a dream!”