The Lonesome Trail

by John G. Neihardt

When the long, thin line, like a huge snake writhing westward into the hills, had disappeared, Rain Walker got up and walked fast. He walked fast, for he wished to be near the place of camping when the night came. And it was so.

He lay at a distance, watching the fires flare into the night and feeling very hungry, for he caught the scent of the boiling kettles. They smelled like home. And when the people had eaten and the fires had fallen, Rain Walker said, “Now I will begin my war. I need a pony, the Poncas have them.”

He crawled upon his hands and knees to where the herd grazed. There had been no watch set, for all the tribes were at peace, except the tribe that walked alone.

And Rain Walker rode away into the night. He had big thoughts as he rode.

The hunting was poor that year; it happened so, they say. Still toward the place where the evening goes went the tribe, peering into far places for the bison; and ever there was one who crept near the tepees at night and heard the words of the Poncas, which are the same as the Omahas speak.

And they wandered, hunting, in the places where the sandhills are—the dreary places.

And one day it happened, they say, that a coyote and a hawk and some crows saw two men in a very lonesome place among the sand hills. They alone saw. And the two met, riding. One was a Ponca gone forth to seek the unappearing herd. He was tall and well made, and his pony was spotted. The other was also even as the first, although not a Ponca; but his pony was not spotted.

And when they met a great cry went up from the one whose pony was not spotted. The coyote and the hawk and the crows heard and saw. It seemed a strange cry in the silence that lived there. Then he who rode the spotted pony turned and fled; but an arrow is swifter than a pony, though it be wind-footed; and he who fled fell upon the sand and the pony ran at some distance and stopped. He looked on also.

And the two men met. He with the arrow in his back arose with a groan from the sand and growled as the other approached and dismounted. They seemed as two who had met and parted enemies.