When Shasta went to bed that night the buffalo robe held no sleep for him; and wherever the butterfly flitted, it did not enter his tepee. All night long he lay awake, restless and uneasy. Often and often he left his couch and looked out. The camp was very still and the stars in their high places glittered bright in a cloudless sky. Now and then the small grey owl hooted dismally from the alder thickets beside the creek, or a coyote would bark fitfully somewhere far off in the night. Shasta had not yet grown used to the prairie. It was so vast, so unenclosed! The forest with its crowding trees, and the immense gloom of a hundred miles of shade, was the thing that made him feel at home. But now the camp of his people was pitched far out on the prairie, and the forest only existed in his dreams. As for Nitka and Shoomoo and the wolf-brothers, they seemed even farther off, and to move in some old life lost among the trees. Three times already since his first coming to the camp, it had been moved. The ends of the new lodge-poles, cut in spring among the foot-hills and dragged by the ponies for enormous distances, now showed signs of wear. The camp at present lay in a wide hollow surrounded by swelling ridges, and hidden from sight until you were close upon it. The lookout bluff upon which Shoshawnee had kept his watch lay a good half-mile to the south, and commanded an immense sweep of prairie on every hand.
The last time Shasta had crept out of the tepee he had looked towards the bluff. It humped itself, a black mass against the stars, like a huge bull-buffalo couched in sleep. When he crept noiselessly back, it seemed to follow him, and when at last sleep overtook him, it was humped among his dreams.
Suddenly he was wide awake, his heart throbbing. Something—he did not know what—had called to him, and roused him from his rest. The tepee was still dark, but a faint glimmer—so faint as to be scarcely seen—showed that daybreak was at hand. Shasta sat up, his eyes straining in the dimness, and his ears listening as only wild animals listen when they are startled.
For a little while he heard nothing but the stillness, which itself was so deep that it seemed as if it were a sort of sound. Then, clear and strikingly distinct, he heard repeated the sound which had broken his sleep.
It was a wolf-howl, long-drawn and wailing, and it was answered directly afterwards by another, and yet another. The cries were some distance off—how far Shasta could not tell. The third came from some spot on the prairie beyond the lookout bluff.
Every pulse in Shasta's body beat in answer to the cries. A wild excitement swept through him. His mind seemed, for the moment, to throw off its Indian teaching and swing back into the wild. Yet, wolf-like though the cries were—so alike that only the wolves themselves would have detected the difference—Shasta's perfect sense of hearing told him that these wailing notes came from no wolf-throats, but from those of Indians who imitated with marvellous closeness the familiar cry. Shoshawnee was right. The danger was at hand. It was within speaking distance: it sang a death-note in the dawn.
Shasta lost no time. He ran swiftly to Big Eagle's tepee. Without waiting for any ceremony, he snatched aside the flap and stepped inside. Rousing the chief he told him what he had heard. Immediately Big Eagle sprang from his buffalo robes, and, seizing his arms, rushed out into the centre of the camp, uttering the gathering cry. Instantly the whole camp was aroused. The braves came running out of the tepees, their bows in their hands and their long quivers slung over their backs. In less than five minutes the sleeping village was turned into an armed camp, with every man it contained prepared for the fight. In the midst of the excitement Shasta disappeared. When Big Eagle commanded the presence of the "medicine" wolf-boy, no one could say what had become of him. Some were inclined to think that he had played a trick upon them, and that there was no danger at all. But Shoshawnee, the old medicine-man, waved his arms excitedly, and declared over and over again that Shasta had been warned by the spirits, and that the Assiniboines were now close at hand.
CHAPTER XVII
SHASTA GOES SCOUTING
When Shasta had given the warning and knew that the tribe was fully roused, he crept out of camp. He went so secretly that no one saw him go. Why he went he could hardly have told himself in the shape of a thought. If the cries had not been wolf-cries, it is probable he would not have gone. He was certain that they were not the genuine wolf-calls, yet they came so very close to them that an uneasy feeling inside him made him want to find out what sort of throat could make so exact an imitation.