And the Indian began a dolorous chanting, which he continued throughout
the night. The lodge-fires died down in the camp, but the muffled intone
came in a hollow sound from the interior of the tepee until the spirit
of silence was made more sure, and sleep came over the bad and good
together.

Across the gray-greens of the moonlit plains bobbed and flitted the dim
form of the seeker of God's help.

Now among the dark shadows of the pines, now in the gray sagebrush, lost
in the coulees, but ceaselessly on and on, wound this figure of the
night. The wolves sniffed along on the trail, but came no nearer.

All night long he pursued his way, his muscles playing tirelessly to the
demands of a mind as taut as bowstring.

Before the morning he had reached the Inyan-kara, a sacred place, and
begun to ascend its pine-clad slopes. It had repulsion for White Otter,
it was sacred--full of strange beings not to be approached except in the
spiritual way, which was his on this occasion, and thus he approached
it. To this place the shadows had retired, and he was pursuing them. He
was in mortal terror--every tree spoke out loud to him; the dark places
gave back groans, the night-winds swooped upon him, whispering their
terrible fears. The great underground wildcat meowed from the slopes,
the red-winged moon-birds shrilled across the sky, and the stone giants
from the cliffs rocked and sounded back to White Otter, until he cried
aloud:

"O Good God, come help me. I am White Otter. All the bad are thick
around me; they have stolen my shadow; now they will take me, and I