It was the old medicine-man, Shoshawnee, and he was making medicine to himself on the high lookout butte that commanded the prairies to the south. The sunset was beginning to be crimson in the west. It struck full in Shoshawnee's face, turning it blood-red. But Shoshawnee had no thought for the colour of his face. He had another thought inside him—a thought of such tremendous importance that there was no room for anything besides. And this was that a danger lay there ambushed in the south. No one else but Shoshawnee knew of the danger; but that was because he had a medicine which never told him lies, and which whispered things to him before they had arrived. And already it had whispered to him that danger was near, and he had heard the huskies give the ghost-bark when they saw the wind go by.  
When he had finished the medicine-song he sat silent, gazing on the prairies. They looked very peaceful, lying abroad there under the sinking sun. Shoshawnee's eyes, travelling over the immense levels, saw nothing that served to increase the unquiet of his mind. Far to the south there stretched, from the Saska River westwards, a dusky band that was like a shadow cast by the sunset. Shoshawnee knew that it was a herd of buffalo—one of those vast herds which in those old Indian days roamed over the wilderness for a thousand miles; coming always from the lake of mystery in the south; going no man knew whither; which no man had ever counted, or would count till the Palefaces came from the East, and the Red man's day was done. Shoshawnee watched the buffaloes keenly. So long as they continued their tranquil feeding, he knew that, whatever danger was afoot, it had not yet approached the outskirts of the herd. For the buffalo are very wary and are always ready to stampede. Yet, although his eyes were fixed intently out there so many miles away, his ears were alert for anything that might happen close about. So, although he did not turn his head, he heard the faint whisper of the dried bent-grass as Shasta in his summer moccasins came lightly up the hill.
 
When he reached Shoshawnee, Shasta did not speak. It is the Palefaces who rush at each other with their tongues. The Red man is never in a hurry with his speech. Why should you hasten your words when the prairies are so broad beside you, and there are no clocks to tick off for you the timeless drift of the summer air? It is only in the cities that men have learnt to waste the hours by counting them; and on the high buttes facing the sunset there is no time.
 
So the sun had dipped below the prairie before at last Shoshawnee spoke.
 
"The buffalo go west," he said slowly, as if the thing was of the utmost importance.
 
Shasta did not put a question actually into words, but he looked it. Shoshawnee understood.
 
"There is much pasture to the west. The buffalo eat the prairie to the setting sun."
 
"Do they eat the edge of the sunset also?" Shasta asked.
 
Shoshawnee shook his head.
 
"The edge of the sunset is the end of the world," he said. "At the end of all things there is no more grass."
 
Shasta was silent at that. It was so unbelievable. The thought stunned him. No more grass!
 
"But beyond the sunset," Shoshawnee went on, "when you come to the Happy Hunting-grounds, the grass is always green. And there the blue flower of the camass never fades, and the sarvis berries never decay."
 
"The Happy Hunting-grounds!" Shasta murmured in his low, husky voice. "Where?"
 
Shoshawnee lifted his hand.
 
"Up there, presently," he said, "you will see the Wolf-trail. It is along the Wolf-trail that you travel to reach them. The Wolf-trail is worn across the heavens by the moccasins of the dead."
 
"Is the hunting better there than it is here?" Shasta asked. "Is there more game?"
 
"It is not better hunting," Shoshawnee said, correcting him. "It is happier. The dead are full of happiness as they follow along the trail."
 
After that there was a long silence, as Shasta kept looking at the sky to watch for the beginning of the Wolf-trail, when the stars should appear. But before that happened Shoshawnee spoke again. This time he spoke quickly, using many words. He spoke so rapidly, and the words followed each other so fast, that at first Shasta could not understand. All he gathered was that danger was in the air, some great danger which as yet you could not see, but which was approaching, always drawing steadily nearer out there on the prairies, and which might arrive before you knew. Then, as Shoshawnee went on, the danger took a shape. It was the shape of Indians on the warpath—Assiniboines that came with deadly cunning and purpose, travelling like wolves along the prairie hollows.
 
Shasta sent his eyes far across the darkening plains, where all things were becoming shadowy and remote, and where even the great herd of buffalo beyond the Saska was no longer visible. How far away the Assiniboines might be he could not guess. Nor could Shoshawnee tell him, when he asked. All Shoshawnee knew was that they were coming, and that when he had finished his medicine-making he would go and warn the tribe. Of one thing only was he certain, and that was, that however near they might be they would not attack at night. The Assiniboines were fierce and cruel but they dreaded the darkness, because they declared that the ghosts of their enemies and many evil spirits were abroad. Their favourite hour of attack was just at daybreak when the first glimmer of dawn was mingling with the mist.
 
When t............