as learning Sioux fast both from Inmutanka and from the
people in the village. He knew the names of many animals. The buffalo
was Pteha, the bear was Warankxi, the badger, Roka; the deer, Tarinca;
the wolf, Xunktokeca.

One can get along with a surprisingly small vocabulary, and one also
learns fast when he is surrounded by people who do not speak his own
language. In six weeks Will had quite a smattering of the Sioux tongue.
He still lived in the lodge of Inmutanka, who was invariably kind and
helpful, and Will soon had a genuine liking for the good old doctor. It
pleased him to wait upon Inmutanka as if he were a son.

It was, on the whole, well for the lad that he was compelled to work,
because after the day's labors were over and he had eaten his supper, he
fell asleep from exhaustion, and slept without dreams. Thus he was not
able to think as much as he would have done about his present condition,
the great quest that he had been compelled to abandon, and those whom he
had lost. Yet he could not believe, despite what Heraka had said, that
Boyd, Brady and the Little Giant were lost. But he had many bitter
moments. Often the humiliations were almost greater than he could bear,
and it seemed that his quest was over forever.

These thoughts came most at night, but renewed courage would always
reappear in the morning. He was too young, too strong, to feel permanent
despair, and his body was growing so tough and enduring that, in his
belief, if a time to escape ever came, he would be equal to it. But it
was obvious that no such time was at hand. There were several hundred
pairs of eyes in the village and he knew that every pair above five
years of age watched him. Nothing that he did escaped their attention.
Somebody was always near him, and, if he attempted flight, the alarm
would be given before he went ten yards, and the whole village would
come swarming upon him. So he wisely made no such trial, and seemed to
settle down into a sort of content.

He saw no more then of Heraka, who had evidently gone away to the great
war with the white men, but he saw a good deal of the chief of the
village, an old man named Xingudan, which in Sioux meant the Fox.
Xingudan's face was seamed with years, though his tall figure was not
bent, and Will soon learned that his name had been earned. Xingudan,
though he seldom went on the war path now, was full of craft and guile
and cunning. The village under his rule was orderly and more f