With this he disbanded the people.  When the sun lowered in the west and the winds were quiet, the village of cone-shaped tepees was gone.  The medicine-man had won the hearts of the people.

Only my father’s dwelling was left to mark the fighting-ground.

IV.

From a long night at my father’s bedside I came out to look upon the morning.  The yellow sun hung equally between the snow-covered land and the cloudless blue sky.  The light of the new day was cold.  The strong breath of winter crusted the snow and fitted crystal shells over the rivers and lakes.  As I stood in front of the tepee, thinking of the vast prairies which separated us from our tribe, and wondering if the high sky likewise separated the soft-hearted Son of God from us, the icy blast from the North blew through my hair and skull.  My neglected hair had grown long and fell upon my neck.

My father had not risen from his bed since the day the medicine-man led the people away.  Though I read from the Bible and prayed beside him upon my knees, my father would not listen.  Yet I believed my prayers were not unheeded in heaven.

“Ha, ha, ha! my son,” my father groaned upon the first snowfall.  “My son, our food is gone.  There is no one to bring me meat!  My son, your soft heart has unfitted you for everything!” Then covering his face with the buffalo-robe, he said no more.  Now while I stood out in that cold winter morning, I was starving.  For two days I had not seen any food.  But my own cold and hunger did not harass my soul as did the whining cry of the sick old man.

Stepping again into the tepee, I untied my snow-shoes, which were fastened to the tent-poles.

My poor mother, watching by the sick one, and faithfully heaping wood upon the centre fire, spoke to me: 

“My son, do not fail again to bring your father meat, or he will starve to death.”

“How, Ina,” I answered, sorrowfully.  From the tepee I started forth again to hunt food for my aged parents.  All day I tracked the white level lands in vain.  Nowhere, nowhere were there any other footprints but my own!  In the evening of this third fast-day I came back without meat.  Only a bundle of sticks for the fire I brought on my back.  Dropping the wood outside, I lifted the door-flap and set one foot within the tepee.

There I grew dizzy and numb.  My eyes swam in tears.  Before me lay my old gray-haired father sobbing like a child.  In his horny hands he clutched the buffalo-robe, and with his teeth he was gnawing off the edges.  Chewing the dry stiff hair and buffalo-skin, my father’s eyes sought my hands.  Upon seeing them empty, he cried out: 

“My son, your soft heart will let me starve before you bring me meat!  Two hills eastward stand a herd of cattle.  Yet you will see me die before you bring me food!”

Leaving my mother lying with covered head upon her mat, I rushed out into the night.