At that time of the morning when the east grows pale, and sleep is the deepest, the famished tribe, having moved a weary day’s journey westward, was sleeping heavily. Suddenly a hoarse shout shattered their dreams and made the hills clamorous with echoes!
The whole camp leaped from its blankets and stared with blinking eyes in the direction of the shout.
There, upon the brow of a hill that overlooked the camp, stood a horse and rider set in bold relief against the pale sky of morning. With a long, bony arm the rider pointed to the westward and again he cried in a weak, broken voice:
“Tae! Tae!” (Bison! bison!)
Then horse and rider collapsed like the figures of a dream that wavers with the morning. A number of men rushing up the hill, found the bodies of the pony and Shanugahi. Upon the lips of the dead rider lingered a calm smile as of contentment.
“It is the smile of Wakunda,” said one old man in awe.
“Wakunda smiles! Wakunda smiles!” shouted the men. The whole camp caught up the cry. “Bison! Bison! Wakunda smiles!”
And when the sun arose, they were moving westward on the trail of Shanugahi.
Two nights afterward there was joy in the camp of the Omahas. Having found the long-sought-for herd, they had feasted heavily, and now they slept as the wolf sleeps when the prey has not escaped. Beside a fire two old men were still awake, and as they smoked, they talked of Shanugahi. He had found the herd. Wakunda had smiled upon him; and yet Shanugahi was ugly and a cripple!