d never
return. His fear was so torturing that he tied him with a raw-hide
thong, and fastened it to one of the lodge-poles. There was a high wind
that night, and the poles strained and creaked; but it was not entirely
owing to the wind; and, in the morning, Kiopo had gone.

Those were the evenings when Dusty Star, lying awake in the tepee, could
hear the coyotes raise that eerie song of theirs which they love to sing
after sunset on the high buttes. It always began in the same way, with a
succession of short barks, growing gradually louder and higher, and
always ending with a long-drawn, squalling howl. And as the boy caught
the high-pitched, yowling cries ringing out in the dusky air, he knew
that God's Dog, as the Indians called him, was at his medicine-making
again, making medicine with his voice. Through enormous spaces of the
twilight, these uncanny cries set his brain spinning. The cries ceased
to be mere coyote notes; they became voices crying the names of
unfamiliar, yet unforgettable things; until at last, when the unearthly
chorus became too piercing to be borne, he pulled the buffalo robe over
his head, to deaden the terrible sound.

If the coyote cries affected Dusty Star so powerfully, they affected
Kiopo equally, though in a different way. At times they made him angry,
at others, wholly miserable. When Kiopo felt upset, he always wanted to
get hold of something to worry with his teeth. So the raw-hide thong
came in very useful, and after gnawing for half the night, Kiopo was
free. Once his own master again, he did not waste valuable time sitting
down to think. Softly as a trail of mist, he drifted out of camp, and
not a husky of them all winded him or saw him go.

The very morning after Kiopo's departure, Sitting-Always was taken ill.
She lay on her couch of antelope skins and moaned with pain. While
Nikana went to summon the medicine-man, Little Fish, Dusty Star was left
to watch his grandmother. He had never seen any one ill before, and the
noises she uttered made him feel uncomfortable. When he asked her if the
pain was in her chest, she said it was lower down. Dusty Star nodded his
head wisely. He had suffered pain in that part himself. It was the place
that made you wish you had not eaten berries before they were ripe. He
observed his grandmother gravely for some time. Suddenly without
warning, he doubled up his fist and thumped her on the spot where she
complained of the pain. This he did, because