What was it? He raised himself on his elbow, and peered about in the glimmer of the dying fire. The tepee was full of shapes of things that were somehow stranger than the things themselves. There were dark, heaped-up objects which made companionable sounds in their noses, and could be explained. But there were others which did not explain themselves, that made no sound at all. Dusty Star looked at them suspiciously in case they might have moved.
As he looked, and listened, there came from the direction of Look-out Bluff a long-drawn, ringing, call. It was no coyote voice. It was deeper, more resonant in tone. Some peculiar quality in it thrilled Dusty Star to the very marrow of his bones. It was the very soul of a wolf that went walking through the wandering spaces of the night: one of the thirsty prairie voices that go hunting down the wind.
Again the cry came. This time it was louder, as if the creature were drawing nearer. The boy's pulses began to beat more wildly. Then there came a long silence, in which the lodge-ears ceased to flap and the wind itself seemed to have died away. Was it going to be nothing at all, Dusty Star asked himself—nothing but a bodiless voice that went by on a windy trail?
Hark, what was that? There was a breathing snuffing sound, as of some creature sniffing at the bottom of the tepee. Then, something scratched.
As Dusty Star left the buffalo-robes, and crept stealthily across the tepee in dreadful fear lest either of his parents should wake, his body burned like a flame.
With the utmost care he unfastened the calf-skin flap and passed out.
There was no moon, but the sky was deep with stars. In their clear-shining, he saw a wolf crouching on the ground.
Dusty Star did not take any risk by rashly stepping forward. He stood absolutely still, yet so anxious lest his wild hope should be vain, that he hardly dared to breathe.
He saw the wolf rise, depress its body slightly and then leap upon him. He felt the weight of the heavy body against his chest, struggled to keep his balance, and fell without a sound.
And then the night and the stars, and the whole world were blotted out by a great hairy wolf-body, and a tongue that licked and slobbered, and slobbered and licked.