undertaking.

Old Big Hair, who sat blinking, knew that the inevitable was going to
happen, but he said no word. He did not advise or admonish. He doted on
his son, and did not want him killed, but that was better than no
eagle-plume.

Still the boys did not consult their relatives in the matter, but on the
appointed evening neither turned up at the ancestral tepee, and Big Hair
knew that his son had gone out into the world to win his feather. Again
he consulted the medicine-pouch and sang dolorously to lull the spirits
of the night as his boy passed him on his war-trail.

Having traveled over the tableland and through the pines for a few
miles, White Otter stopped, saying: "Let us rest here. My medicine says
not to go farther, as there is danger ahead. The demons of the night are
waiting for us beyond, but my medicine says that if we build a fire the
demons will not come near, and in the morning they will be gone."

They made a small fire of dead pine sticks and sat around it wrapped in
the skins of the gray wolf, with the head and ears of that fearful
animal capping theirs--unearthly enough to frighten even the monsters of
the night.

Old Big Hair had often told his son that he would send him out with some
war-party under a chief who well knew how to make war, and with a
medicine-man whose war-medicine was strong; but no war-party was going
then and youth has no time to waste in waiting. Still, he did not fear
pursuit.