But to give tongue was not enough. The madness that was in Dusty Star's body seemed to bite into the bodies of the wolves. Some strange power moved them. The mysterious restlessness that had stirred the wolf-kindred since the beginning of the world came upon them now with an irresistible force. First one, and then another, began to run about and bark. The movement spread. It was not long before the entire pack was in violent motion, running and leaping in continuous circles, narrower and wider as the impulse came.
It was like a storm of wolf bodies, the centre of which was Kiopo and the White Wolf.
All this time neither Kiopo nor the White Wolf had moved. But upon them also the mysterious power grew. All at once, as if by a swift agreement, they sprang into the air, and joined Dusty Star in his Dance.
And now, as if a barrier had been suddenly withdrawn, like surging waters breaking over a dam, the wolves poured from all sides into the ring.
There was no thought now of attacking either Dusty Star or his wolf. The boy's sudden action had certainly saved their lives; for the wolves had recognized in him a mysterious power which, unfamiliar as it was, claimed kinship with the pack.
If any human eyes had been watching from a neighbouring butte they would have seen an unaccountable sight. In the haunted stillness of the Bad Lands, beneath the white glare of an enormous prairie moon, the wolves danced a stormy movement about the young Indian brother who made medicine with his feet.
Circling about him, leaping over him, chasing each other in bewildering circles, snarling, snapping, barking, howling, the united packs swept round the plateau in a roaring, rushing storm.
In that tumultuous sea of wolf-bodies, Dusty Star was engulfed. He scarcely knew what was happening. He had been in a dream before. Now he was swept far out of himself into an even wilder dream—into places where the moon herself danced the wolf-dance and the stars yelped at her heels.
How long the dance continued he did not know. He saw the writhing wolf-forms on every hand. He was dimly conscious that Kiopo was continually at his side. What he knew was, that now, at last, he had entered the great mystery; he was making the medicine of the wolves.
And so, in the white moon-glare, among the lonely buttes, the fierce wild creatures gave their leaping bodies to the dance that had been seen by no man since the beginning of the world.