ighten even the monsters of
the night.

Old Big Hair had often told his son that he would send him out with
some war-party under a chief who well knew how to make war, and with a
medicine-man whose war-medicine was strong; but no war-party was going
then and youth has no time to waste in waiting. Still, he did not fear
pursuit.

Thus the two human wolves sat around the snapping sticks, eating their
dried buffalo meat.

"To-morrow, Red Arrow, we will make the war-medicine. I must find a gray
spider, which I am to kill, and then if my medicine says go on, I am not
afraid, for it came direct from the Good God, who told me I should live
to wear white hair."

"Yes," replied Red Arrow, "we will make the medicine. We do not know
the mysteries of the great war-medicine, but I feel sure that my own is
strong to protect me. I shall talk to a wolf. We shall find a big gray
wolf, and if as we stand still on the plain he circles us completely
around, we can go on, and the Gray Horned Thunder-Being and the Great
Pipe-Bearing Wolf will march on our either side. But if the wolf does
not circle us, I do not know what to do. Old Bear-Walks-at-Right, who is
the strongest war-medicine-maker in the Chis-chis-chash, says that when
the Gray Horned Thunder-Being goes with a war-party, they are sure of
counting their enemies' scalps, but when the Pipe-Bearing Wolf also
goes, the enemy cannot strike back, and the Wolf goes only with the
people of our clan."

Thus the young men talked to each other, and the demons of the night
joined in their conversation from among the tree-tops, but got no nearer
because the fire shot words of warning up to them, and the hearts of the
boys were strong to watch the contest and bear it bravely.

With the first coming of light they started on--seeking the gray spider
and the gray wolf. After much searching through the rotting branches
of the fallen trees, White Otter was heard calling to Red Arrow: "Come!
Here is the gray spider, and as I kill him, if he contains blood I shall
go on, but if he does not contain blood my medicine says there is great
danger, and we must not go on."

Over the spider stooped the two seekers of truth, while White Otter got
the spider on the body of the log, where he crushed it with his bow. The
globular insect burst into a splash of blood, and the young savage
threw back his shoulders with a haughty grunt, saying, "My medicine
is strong--we shall go to the middle of the Absarok