hat he had now attained a plane of
social equality with the Indians of the village.

Whatever it may have seemed six months before, it was no small triumph
now. His task was chiefly in the making of arms, along with the other
warriors, and he soon become the equal of any of them. He also practiced
with them the throwing of the tomahawk at trees, in which he acquired
wonderful dexterity. But his best work was done among the ponies. Often
in jest he called himself the horse doctor of the camp. He had studied
their ailments and he knew how to cure them, but above all was his
extraordinary gift of reaching into the horse nature, a power, derived
he knew not whence or how, of conveying to them the sympathy for them in
his nature. They responded as human beings do to such a feeling, and,
with a word and a sign, he could lead a whole herd from one field to
another.

This power of his impressed the Sioux even more than his slaying of the
monstrous grizzly bear with only a spear. It was a gift direct from
Manitou, and they were proud that an adopted warrior of their village
should have such a mysterious strength. Will knew now that he was no
longer in danger of torture by fire or otherwise. Old Xingudan would not
do it. Heraka, who was his superior chief, might return and command it,
but Xingudan and the whole village would disobey. Moreover, he was now
the adopted son of Inmutanka, a young Sioux warrior with all the rights
of a Sioux, and the law forbade them to torture him or put him to death.
And Indian laws were often better obeyed than white man's laws.

Xingudan kept his repeating rifle, his revolver and his field glasses,
but a bow and arrows were permitted to him, and he learned to use them
as well as any of the Indians. The valley and the slopes that were not
too high and steep, afforded an extensive hunting range, despite the
deep snow, and Will brought down with a lucky arrow a fine elk that made
for him a position yet better in the village, as he and Inmutanka, his
father, were entitled to the body, but instead divided at least half of
it among the older and weaker men and women.

Despite the favor into which he had come, Will could learn nothing of
his location or of the progress of the war between the great Sioux
nation and the whites. Yet of the latter he had a hint. Just before the
winter closed in on them finally, a young warrior, evidently a runner
because he bore all the signs of having travelled far and fa