“He was going to change into the grasshopper so that he could hide in the grass until the Thunder Beings had gone by. But he did not do this, for just then his old grandmother came running out of her tepee with a hatchet. She was very angry, and she was yelling at the Thunder Beings. ‘What are you doing to my grandson?’ Whack! ‘This is my little grandson, and don’t you dare hurt him!’ Whack! Whack! ‘You go away from here, you bad Thunder Beings!’ Whack! Whack! The last stroke of her hatchet cut right through the boiling black cloud, and the sun blazed out. That made the Thunder Beings turn and fly away as fast as they could fly, and you could hear them rumbling and howling, rumbling and howling until they were back under the edge of the world.”
“Washtay! Washtay! Washtay!”
Eagle Voice waited for the applause to cease. After it had ceased, he still sat in silence, as though enjoying the golden peace of a world delivered.
“Maybe he can have the girl now—?” No Water ventured timidly.
“Chief’s daughter!” Moves Walking exclaimed.
“Dho,” said Eagle Voice, smiling benignly upon the two. “The chief has his right arm again and Falling Star has the chief’s daughter. Also, he still has his first eagle plume and the hawk’s feather and the grasshopper. He did not need these powers; but he is going to have a son when the young grass comes again, and his son must have these, for there are more villages that need help, and his son will help them.
“You come back with the young grass and I will tell you all about it then.”
XX
The Battle in the Blizzard
“There was strength in that meat,” remarked Eagle Voice, when next we sat alone together in his tepee and the pipe was passed. “Almost as strong as fat bison cow, and even I could chew it. Good meat and stories told with friends make young awhile. When I was getting wood this morning I could smell melting in the wind. It is far to the young grass yet, but I think there will be a little water running before the wind changes. It was like that to eat good meat with No Water and Moves Walking and you, and to remember together.”
When we had talked awhile about our two guests at the late feast, the old man said: “They are younger than I am, but Moves Walking is not much younger. No Water was only a boy when we fought the soldiers of the Gray Fox [General Crook] on the Rosebud, and when we rubbed out Long Hair [Custer] on the Greasy Grass. But Moves Walking was almost a young man already, the winter when the thirty Lakota were killed. That was the winter after my first sun dance that I have told you about.