sucked
her thumb with unceasing perseverance, and made soft glug-glugging
noises in her little Indian throat.

That night when Dusty Star had lain down in his buffalo-robe bed, with
Kiopo curled at his feet, he stayed awake a long time. He listened to
the voices that seem born of the darkness--the hoot of the little grey
owl from the swamp across the river, the evening call of coyotes among
the prairie bluffs and those other small mysterious sounds that creep
about the silence without paws or walking feet. And overhead was the
night--the enormous Indian night, with all its glittering
fires--stretched like a huge tepee from horizon to horizon, though
the stars upon its sides were anything but dusty, and if the Great
Spirit walked there, he was careful that his moccasins should not crush
the tiny stars. And when at length Dusty Star fell asleep, he dreamed of
a great hunting across the windy places of the sky, where the buffaloes
clashed their horns against the cliffs of Heaven, and the wolf-pack woke
the echoes in the hollows of the moon.

The fording of the river next morning was a great delight. Dusty Star
rode on his father's back, and Blue Wings went on her mother's.
Osikomix, splashed grandly across, taking the water up to his belly. But
when the party had reached the opposite shore, Dusty Star found that
Kiopo was left behind. There he stood looking anxiously at the water,
and enquiringly at his owners, as if asking which of them was coming
back to fetch him. But as it was soon made plain to him that no one
intended to do so, and that the party was preparing to continue on its
way, he put his courage into all his paws and plunged into the stream.
It was the very first time he had taken to the water, but his instinct
taught him what to do, and he swam bravely across, dragging himself up
the opposite bank, a little half-drowned caricature of a wolf, panting
with excitement and pride.

After that, there were no more adventures for the day. At night, they
camped as before, and again Dusty Star dreamed of the great hunting that
swept between the stars.

It was in the afternoon of the nineteenth day's travel that they came at
last within sight of the camp. When Dusty Star saw the great number of
tepees crowded together, his eyes grew big with amazement. He had not
thought there could have been so many lodges in all the world. To him it
was a huge prairie city, whose houses were built of buffalo, with doors
of bucksk