ended to visit his grandmother. So
he looked into the painted face and said.

"The shadows grow longer."

Lone Chief understood.

"Yes," he answered solemnly. "When the sun goes towards his lodge, it is
what the shadows are accustomed to do."

It was not the words themselves which told Dusty Star what was going on
in the medicine-man's mind, but that unspoken knowledge which flashes,
none knows how, from one prairie-dweller to another along the invisible
trail. In an instant he realized that Lone Chief did not intend to come.
Slowly rising to his feet, he gazed straight into the medicine-man's
face. Then with a clear, ringing tone, he spoke in a voice that was
almost a cry.

"I am sent to bid you to come to my grandmother Sitting-Always, who is
not happy with herself inside. If you do not come, the pain will drive
her along the wolf-trail; but she does not wish to go."

He ended abruptly, his body held very stiff, like a young larch-tree
when there is no wind. And in his eyes, fixed upon the medicine-man's
face with an unblinking stare, a spark glimmered as if his mind were set
ablaze.

Lone Chief looked at him in astonishment. In the many thousand leagues
his moccasins had travelled, he had never met anything like this. That a
mere boy--hardly more than a child--should find the daring to address
_him_, Lone Chief, the famous medicine-man, words which were like a
command uttered by a full-grown man, was an astounding thing. In spite
of himself, he felt uneasy. What was it, he asked himself, which made
this boy so strangely different from other boys? The cunning eyes,
practised to read the faintest signs on all faces and all trails,
employed their utmost skill now to read the secret hidden in the boy.
But that strange glitter in the boy's eyes baffled him; and when, after
a long gaze, he looked away into the distance, he had a curious feeling
that he had been questioning the eyeballs of a wolf.

He moved his hand in the direction of the sun, now almost touching the
rim of the western hills, saying as he did so:

"When the sun has entered his lodge, I will come."

With a glow of triumph, Dusty Star knew that he had won. He also knew
that Lone Chief would waste no more words. He simply bowed, to
acknowledge his gratitude; then turned, and ran swiftly towards the
trees. As he ran, the lithe movements of his body caught the
medicine-man's eye.

"That way the wolves run, with their whole body," he murmured
appr