There were two other persons who also had a long memory, and who remained at the outside of the crowd. Dusty Star's sharp eyes caught sight of a tall, slightly stooping figure, standing alone in solitary contemplation, and he immediately made his way towards it.
As he saw the youth approaching him, Lone Chief never moved. Something that might almost have been taken for a smile flickered in his face.
Dusty Star was the first to speak.
"I said I would not come," he said, and stopped.
Lone Chief understood. He was remembering an occasion when a boy had come to him with an urgent appeal for help which he had refused; and which because the boy had brought a strange influence with him, he had given it after all.
"I also said I would not come," he replied, while the thing that might have been a smile flickered and went out. "The medicine has strange ways. Though the words go west, the heart may take the eastern trail."
Dusty Star's mind flashed to Sitting-Alway's sickness, and he also understood.
They said nothing more, but each felt that, whatever happened in the future, there was a sympathy between them which would always hold them friends.
The other person with the backward-reaching memory remained even further in the background than Lone Chief. As the reflections of the dancing flames lit up the old yellow-painted face, its sunken eyes glared out upon the scene with an expression of uneasiness that was almost fear.
"The wolves are bad medicine," the painted mouth muttered. "No good will come of it, if the wolf stays."