e of great antics which he would not have believed possible in
his most tremendous dreams.

Moment by moment, a wilder spirit of mischief seemed to enter into him.
The occupants of the tepee looked on in amazement, as the lithe crazy
shape, leaped and crouched, howled, barked and sang.

Rising suddenly to his full height, he took a flying jump and landed
close beside his grandmother's couch. Sitting-Always terrified, out of
her wits, uttered a piercing cry.

Up to the present, Nikana had sat rigidly still as if mesmerised by her
son's madness. But her mother's cry of fear broke the spell, and she
darted forward to seize him. But Dusty Star was too quick for her.
Springing back across the fire, he gave, with a full throat, the hunting
cry of the wolves. Then, before any one could stop him, he tore back the
door-flap and fled laughing from the tepee.

CHAPTER VII

HOW THE WOLVES SANG

Next day, Sitting-Always had recovered. The awkward part of it was that
no one could tell which of the medicine-makers had brought about the
cure. Dusty Star went about with an uncomfortable sense that, sooner or
later, he would be punished for his share in the performance. It had
been a splendid piece of frolic; and when you had enjoyed yourself in an
extra special way, it generally happened that the grown-up people would
come down heavily upon you. Yet as the day went on and nothing happened,
he felt more and more bewildered. He had often been punished for
naughtiness far less daring. Now, when he had set everybody at defiance,
no one said a word. But there were eyes. He could not hide the fact that
people looked at him in a strange way as he went about the camp. Even in
the home tepee his father and mother observed him curiously, and he felt
their eyes upon him even when he pretended not to know.

Gradually, as the days went by, the impression faded. There was a more
important thing that haunted his mind continually. _Kiopo did not come
back._

The weather grew colder. There was much business in the upper sky. By
day it took the form of a great arrow-head of wings, driving from the
north; by night it was a voice. And as the harsh honking cry fell from
the roof of the world, Dusty Star knew that the vast waters of the North
were giving up their geese.

And when the last arrow-head had winged, and the last _honk_ fallen, the
night-breeze that came sighing along a thousand miles of prairie was
barbed with early frost.

O