the coming of the enemy, for the better
protection of the women and the little ones, but no chiefs or councils
were strong enough to stop the yearning of the young Cheyennes for
military glory. All self-esteem, all applause, all power and greatness,
came only down that fearful road--the war trail. Despite the pleadings
of tribal policy Iron Horn, a noted war- and mystery-man, secretly
organized his twenty men for glorious death or splendid triumph. Their
orders went forth in whispers. "By the full of the moon at the place
where the Drowned Buffalo water tumbled over the rocks one day's
pony-travel to the west."

Not even Seet-se-be-a knew why the Bat was not sitting back against his
willow-mat in the gray morning when she got up to make the kettle boil,
but she had a woman's instinct which made her raise the flap to look
out. The two war-ponies were gone. Glancing again behind the robes of
his bed she saw, too, that the oiled rifle was missing. Quickly she ran
to the lodge of Red Arrow's father, wailing, "My man has gone, my man
has gone--his fast ponies are gone--his gun is gone," and all the dogs
barked and ran about in the shadows while Red Arrow's mother appeared in
the hole in the tepee, also wailing, "My boy has gone, my boy has gone,"
and the village woke up in a tumult. Everyone understood. The dogs
barked, the women wailed, the children cried, the magpies fluttered
overhead while the wolves answered back in piercing yells from the
plains beyond.

Big Hair sat up and filled his pipe. He placed his medicine-bag on the
pole before him and blew smoke to the four sides of the earth and to the
top of the lodge saying: "Make my boy strong. Make his heart brave,
O Good Gods--take his pony over the dog-holes--make him see the enemy
first!" Again he blew the smoke to the deities and continued to pray
thus for an hour until the sun-lit camp was quiet and the chiefs sat
under a giant cotton-wood, devising new plans to keep the young men at
home.

Meanwhile from many points the destined warriors loped over the rolling
landscape to the rendezvous. Tirelessly all day long they rose and fell
as the ponies ate up the distance to the Drowned Buffalo, stopping
only at the creeks to water the horses. By twos and threes they met,
galloping together--speaking not. The moon rose big and red over
their backs, the wolves stopped howling and scurried to one side--the
ceaseless thud of the falling hoofs continued monotonously, broken