brooding had driven him to the rim-rock, where his soul rocked and
pounced within him. He looked at the land of his people, and he hated
all vehemently, with a rage that nothing stayed but his physical strength.

Old Big Hair, his father, sitting in the shade of his tepee, looked out
across at his son on the far-off skyline, and he hid his head in his
blanket as he gazed into his medicine-pouch. "Keep the enemy and the Bad
Gods from my boy; he has no one to protect him but you, my medicine."

Thus hour after hour there sat the motionless tyro, alone with his own
shadow on the hill. The shades of all living nature grew great and
greater with the declining sun. The young man saw it with satisfaction.
His heart swelled with brave thoughts, as his own extended itself down
the hillside--now twenty feet long--now sixty--until the western sun was
cut by the bluffs, when it went out altogether. The shadow of White
Otter had been eaten up by the shadow of the hill. He knew now that he
must go to the westward--to the western mountains, to the Inyan-kara,
where in the deep recesses lay the shadows which had eaten his. They
were calling him, and as the sun sank to rest, White Otter rose slowly,
drew his robe around him, and walked away from the Chis-chis-chash camp.

The split sticks in Big Hair's lodge snapped and spit gleams of light on
the old warrior as he lay back on his resting-mat. He was talking to his
sacred symbols. "Though he sleeps very far off, though he sleeps even on
the other side, a spirit is what I use to keep him. Make the bellies of
animals full which would seek my son; make the wolf and the bear and the
panther go out of their way. Make the buffalo herds to split around my
son, Good God! Be strong to keep the Bad God back, and all his
demons--lull them to sleep while he passes; lull them with soft sounds."