They said no word as he pushed the canoe into the current and shot downstream, for a white light was upon his face, and the dream rode with him.
Then Sky-Walker and his old squaw climbed a high bluff and watched the speck that was Wa-choo-bay fading in the mist of distance.
“This is the last I shall see,” said the old woman, “for I am old and the winter is in my hair. But great things will happen when I am gone.”
And under the shade of a lean hand raised browward she saw the black speck vanish in the blue of distance.
Summers and winters passed. Sky-Walker and his old squaw died; the name of Wa-choo-bay became a dim and mystic thing. Yet often about the fires of winter, when the wind moaned about the lodges, the old men talked of the going away of the Holy One, making the eyes of the youths grow big with wonder.
And often the old men and women gazed from the high bluff down the dim stretches of the muddy river, wondering when Wa-choo-bay would come back, for it was said that great things would happen at his coming.
It happened many years after the going away of Wa-choo-bay that the Omaha tribe had its village in the valley on a creek near the big muddy water.
It was the time when the sunflowers made sunlight in the valleys and when the women were busy pulling weeds from the gardens.
One evening a band of youths, who had been playing on the bluffs overlooking the far reaches of the river, came with breathless speed and terror-stricken faces into the village.
“Monda geeung [devil boat]!” they cried, pointing to the river. “A big canoe breathing out smoke and fire is swimming up Ne Shoda.”