“They’re out, Rosie,” he said. And a moment later the gates were closed behind the party.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE SUN-DANCE
The pale moon shone down upon a strange scene.
Four great fires marked the limits of a wide clearing. And these were set with consummate accuracy at the cardinal points. Superstition demanded this setting.
The ruddy glow threw into uncertain relief the faces and unkempt figures of a vast concourse of men and women gathered, in one great circle, within the boundary limits of the fires. On the faces of all was an expression of fierce revelry. A dark setting completed the picture. Beyond the fires all was shadow, profound, ghostly. The woods in all directions closed in that weird concourse of beings, and even the devilish light of the fires could not relieve the savagery of the scene.
Like the hub of a gigantic wheel, in the midst of the circle stood a cluster of leafless trees, mighty patriarchs, gnarled and twisted, with great overhanging limbs as stout and rugged as only hoary age can make them.
The clearing inside the human circle was empty for a time, but the crowd without was momentarily increasing, augmented by an incessant stream of 284 dusky, silent figures pouring from the adjacent forest depths. As the minutes wore on the human tide slackened; it became broken, finally it ceased altogether. Men, women and children, all the able-bodied inhabitants of the Rosebud Reservation had foregathered, and the significance of the gathering could not be mistaken.