Kiopo at last!
Dusty Star did not struggle. He knew if he attempted to rise, Kiopo would only knock him down again, at the risk of rousing the sleepers in the tepee. Even as it was, he dreaded lest his father might hear, and come out to see what was going on; for Kiopo, in his wild delight, could not content himself with action only, but must keep up a continual whining and growling, broken every now and then by smothered barks.
It was some time before Kiopo's excitement had cooled enough for him to let Dusty Star get up. Every time the boy seemed inclined to rise, the wolf, planting a fore-paw firmly upon his chest, bared his shining teeth, and growled. It was as much as if he said:
"I ran away from you once, little brother, because it was necessary, but now I am going to see that you don't escape from me!"
When Kiopo was calm enough to behave more reasonably, Dusty Star sat up. He put his arms round his neck, and began to talk to him in a low, gurgling flow of quaint Indian words. And indeed the words seemed to be sweet with the juice of sarvis berries and wild pears, and to have the wind in them over a thousand miles of prairie, and the wet sound of great waters, and syllables borrowed from beasts and birds since the beginning of the earth. If Kiopo did not understand the words in the very exact shape of them as they ran from Dusty Star's mouth, he had a sense of what he was trying to tell him, because he understood the great nature-language that is deeper than the dictionaries, and lies broad along the world.
Beyond a low whine occasionally, or a gurgle in his throat, Kiopo did not reply. Yet his very silence was an answer. His whole body gave it. His silence bulged with Himself.
CHAPTER IX
SITTING-ALWAYS SPEAKS HER MIND
The news of Kiopo's return ran swiftly through the camp. They spoke of it in the tepees as something to be reckoned with. It might mean evil, or it might mean good. Whether good or evil, it was very strange. As for the huskies, they had but one feeling about it: the wolf's return was bad. All that day, and the days that followed, Stickchi's eyes had a wicked glitter; and not a husky of them all but knew that mischief was brewing.