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"Then I thank also Inmutanka, or the Panther, whichever he prefers to be called. I can't see the top of my head, but I know he made a good job of it." Inmutanka proved to be an elderly but robust Sioux warrior, and however he may have been when torture was going forward he wore just then a bland smile, although not much else.
Once they crossed a rather deep creek, and deliberately letting his foot drop down into it, he found the water quite cold, which was proof to him that they were going back toward the ridges, and that this current was chill, because it flowed from great heights, perhaps from a glacier. They made no stop at noon, merely eating a little pemmican, Will's share being handed to him by Inmutanka.
Then he and Inmutanka scraped it carefully, and, when it was well cured until it was soft and flexible, they put it in their lodge, where it spread so far over the bark floor that they were compelled to roll it back partly, to keep it out of the fire in the centre. It was the finest trophy in the village, and many came to admire it.
He fell asleep almost at once, and did not awake until old Inmutanka aroused him at dawn. After breakfast he was put on the pony again, blindfolded, and they rode all day long in a direction of which he was ignorant, but, as he believed, over low hills, and, as he knew, among bushes, because they often reached out and pulled at his legs.
"I have never before heard so many wolves howl together, and their voices are so big and fierce that they must be those of the great wolves of the northern mountains." "They're going to attack the village," said Will. "I can tell that by the way they're coming on." "It is so," said Inmutanka. "They run on the snow, which is frozen so deep that it can bear their weight."
When Will departed for their lodge with Inmutanka, Xingudan said to Roka: "What think you now, Roka, of Waditaka, once Wayaka, a captive youth, but now Waditaka, the brave young Sioux warrior, the adopted son of Inmutanka, who is the greatest curer of sickness among us?"
Heraka with a sharp word or two sent all the women and children flying, and then said in tones of great gravity to Will: "Here you are to remain a prisoner, the prisoner of all the village, until we choose your fate. You will stay in a tepee with Inmutanka, but everybody will watch you, the men, the women, the girls and the boys.
The winds out of the north grew fierce and cutting, and on the vast and distant peaks the snow line came down farther and farther. "The village is in good condition to meet it," said Will. "Better than most villages of our people," said Inmutanka. "The white man presses back the red man because the red man thinks only of today, while the white man thinks of tomorrow too.
He surmised from the angle of the sun's rays that the day was far advanced. Pemmican, strips of venison and some corn cakes lay by the edge of the fire and he knew that good old Inmutanka had left them there for him. He began to feel hungry.
Inmutanka himself came very near losing his life, as a monster whirled and sprang for him, but Will received the throat of the wolf on the point of the lance, and although he was borne to the earth, the raging brute was killed instantly. When the wintry dawn came, none of the great pack was left alive near the village.
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