They seized each other and rolled upon the sand. The coyote whined, the crows cawed, but the hawk only watched. But all the while the ponies neighed.
And the sting of the arrow weakened one, but he fought like a bear. He made a good fight. But the other fixed his hands upon his enemy’s throat until the silent places were filled with a gurgling and a rasping of breath that came hard. Then there was only silence. The coyote ran away, the crows and the hawk flew. The ponies alone watched now.
And the man whose pony was not spotted arose and laughed very loud—only it was not the laugh of a glad man. Then the man who laughed stripped off the garments of the other and put them upon himself. Then he built a fire and lit his pipe and made choobay smoke. Then he spoke to the various wakundas that were somewhere there in the silence.
“I have killed my enemy. I will burn his heart and give you the ashes, O Grandfathers!”
The crows heard this, for they had come back looking for their feast.
And the man burned the heart of his enemy and scattered the ashes, singing a brave song all the while. He had learned to do this from the Kansas; it is their custom.
Then the man got on the spotted pony and rode away, bearing with him the weapons of the man who stayed. And when he was gone the crows and the coyote came and made harsh noises at each other, for each was hungry, and there was a feast spread there upon the sand.
And it happened that evening, they say, that one rode into the Ponca camp and went to the tepee where Sun Eyes, the Omaha woman, waited for someone.
The man who came had his whole face hidden with a piece of buckskin, having eye and mouth holes in it. And Sun Eyes was cooking over a fire before her tepee.
“Ho, Mad Buffalo!” she said; “you have not found the bison. Why have you hidden your face?”