As he spoke, his eyes shone. It was not a good shining. He, too, had learnt to hate.
In vain Lone Chief explained, argued, protested. Dusty Star stood his ground. In spite of all the Medicine-man could say, he refused absolutely to come. Lone Chief was annoyed at the boy's firmness, but he was also surprised. In the interval since he had last seen him, it was only too plain that the boy had learnt many things; among others, he had learnt to be a man.
It was a long time before Lone Chief gave up the attempt to bring the boy to a more reasonable frame of mind. He stayed all day. At nightfall he made his camp beside Dusty Star's. At dawn he was still there, ready, with an Indian's doggedness to begin the argument all over again. But in the morning, something happened. Kiopo came back.
He had been out hunting, and as soon as he set his eyes on Lone Chief, he showed his teeth in a threatening snarl.
By this time the wolf had every reason to distrust human beings. Dusty Star was the one great exception. In the Indian before him, Kiopo saw an enemy. If Dusty Star had not held him back, he would have flown at him.
And the wolf's return seemed to make the boy all the firmer in his refusal. Faced by the pair of them, Lone Chief realized at last that he was powerless. He knew that he would be forced to return to the tribe, and confess the failure of his mission. Whatever the coveted wolf-medicine might perform, it was not for them. They had lost it in the moons. And in spite of his great wisdom, and his ancient cunning, he was uneasy. He felt that he was in the presence of a great and peculiar power. In all of his wide experience he had never come across anything like it before. There was something about the wolf that seemed more than the mere animal. There was something in Dusty Star that seemed uncannily related to the wolves. He was relieved when at length he turned from the camp, and found himself out of sight of it once more, among the endless ranks of the trees.
CHAPTER XXIV
EVIL DAYS
The Maple leaves were yellowing in the Fall. The hollow seed-cups of the wild parsley were turning old and grey. Up the slopes of the northern buttes, the shumack flared like a shout of flame. Over a thousand leagues of prairie the days carried the warmth and stillness of that mysterious season called the Indian Summer; but the nights had cold in them, and the middle sky had voices. For the geese were coming now—driving out of the north in great arrow-heads of flight—and the nightwind passed with a dry whisper, like the running of antelope through dead grasses, over a thousand leagues.