arly the following morning Hawk Eye and Raven Wing pushed off from the
landing and followed up the twisting course of the river. Paddling was
not so easy against the current.

"We have no need to hurry," remarked Hawk Eye. "We will visit on our
way," and so they stopped to beach their canoes whenever they saw upon
the bluffs the summer houses of poles and leaves which the Sioux erect
in place of the winter tepees of dressed buffalo skin.

Black Dog gave them a hearty welcome. For several weeks they enjoyed his
hospitality. Further up the river they disembarked at Penichon's
village, where an old warrior who had once gone on the warpath with
Smoky Wolf, made much of them on learning that they were from the band
of his old friend.

"Say to Smoky Wolf," he commanded, as Hawk Eye and Raven Wing took leave
of the aged brave, "that I predict you will be great warriors."

Again they beached their canoes on coming to Shakepay's village, the
largest of all. And so it went all the way up the sky-tinted water of
the curving, twisting river. At Lac Qui Parle, their last stopping
place, they visited the village of the Wahpeton Sioux, called the people
of the leaves.

Here it was that Raven Wing was reminded of the time, many, many years
before, when his grandfather made his first offering to the Great
Mystery.

"Red Feather was a great warrior," said an old squaw. "I remember when
he was very young that Uncheeda, his grandmother, led him to the top of
a high rock from which to fling his most beloved possession into the
lake."

"It was a necklace of bear claws, was it not?" asked Raven Wing.

"Yes, my son it was," answered the old squaw.

At length the two boys took leave of the friendly Wahpetons. Indian
Summer had come and gone as they rounded the last bend in the river and
saw thin smoke rising from their village fires.

Ohitika sensed the nearness of old familiar places and began to bark.
The boys bent to their paddles, sending their frail craft along at a
faster pace.

The sunshine hung like yellow smoke over Big Stone Lake. Bright-colored
leaves, loosed by the wind, scurried along the ground. Only the burr
oaks held valiantly to their raiment. A thin crust of ice lay on the
quiet waters of slough and marshland, but at warm noon, they again
reflected the sky tints of an autumn day. Wild geese honked overhead and
wild ducks winged upward from the watery wild rice fields.

On a rise of ground overlooking the river s