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But lo, instead of jumping upon him, the wolf trotted forward, and gently licked his wounds, and then lay quietly down beside him. Konate was amazed and thankful. While the wolf lay there, next he heard another sound, in the distance: the shrill eagle-bone-whistle music of the great Sun-dance of the Kiowa nation.
For, listen: Meanwhile the Painted-red party were riding on, and in the Staked Plain they met six Comanches, bound to Mexico after plunder. They spoke to the Comanches regarding Konate, and asked them to cover his body so that the wolves should not get it. This the Comanches promised to do, and continued to the Sun-mountain Spring where Konate had been left to die.
Soon he heard the wolf, at hand; there was the soft patter of its pads, and the sniffing of its inquiring nose, seeking him out. And now he saw the wolf, with shining eyes peering into the bough shelter where he lay helpless, unable even to speak. That was an agonizing moment, for Konate.
The medicine spirit sat with Konate most of the night, and told him many things: told him how to make a new kind of Sun-dance shield, and also an a-po-te, or sacred forked staff, that should be a medicine staff and have magic powers. Toward morning the medicine spirit left, saying: "Help is near." Every bit of this Konate firmly insisted was true, although white men claimed that he dreamed.
Such had been the strong medicine of Konate, to whom, about to die from his wounds, in his shelter by the Sun-mountain Spring beyond the Staked Plain, the taime spirit had talked. Konate was dead; but K'a-ya-nti, his nephew, the other keeper of the stick, was still alive; and he knew. The name Sioux comes down from a longer Chippewa word meaning "adder" or "enemy."
At the very end there was a hole which let in daylight. Konate was boosted up; but when he stuck his head through, a soldier saw it and he had to duck down. Thereupon the soldiers stopped the hole with a large rock. When ten days and nine nights had passed, they all decided that they would either escape or be killed. The horse meat could not be touched; neither could the water.
Away they dashed, several riding double, and Konate supported in his seat by a comrade. Behind, in the well, Dagoi sat beside the pool and kept his heart strong for the end that would come by daylight. All that night and all the next day they rode, making northeast toward the desolate desert region of the Staked Plain, on the homeward way across western Texas.
But in finding horses, somebody made a little noise, and the Mexicans fired wildly into the darkness. However, answering not, and leading the horses out a short way, step by step, they were ready to vault on. "Anybody hurt?" "A bullet has gone through my body," said Konate. "But I will try to ride." "We must hurry," spoke Painted-red. The camp was all aroused. "Someone help Konate."
In the star-light he heard a wolf howl, far off. He listened, and the howl sounded again, nearer, from another direction. Then he knew that the wolf had scented him and was ranging to find his spot. That would be bad to be eaten by a wolf and have one's bones scattered! Konate groaned. His heart had been strong, until this moment. He had hoped that his bones would be cared for.
Konate carried the medicine stick in the Sun-dance, for several years, and then handed it on to his nephew K'a-ya-nti, or Falls-over-a-bank, who became Lean Bull the second but the white people called him Poor Buffalo. This apote was a two-pronged stick about four feet long, decorated with wild sage. It was smooth and had no bark, and was brought out only once a year, for the Sun-dance.
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