Where the Buffaloes Begin

Over the blazing camp-fires, when the wind moaned eerily through the thickets of juniper and fir, they spoke of it in the Indian tongue-of the strange lake to the south whose waters never rest. And Nawa, the wise man, who had lived such countless moons that not even the oldest member of the tribe could remember a time when Nawa was not old, declared that if you arrived at the right time, on the right night, you would see the buffaloes rise out of the middle of the lake and come crowding to the shores; for there, he said, was the sacred spot where the buffaloes began. It was not only Nawa who declared that the buffaloes had their beginnings beneath the water and were born in the depths of the lake. The Indian legend, far older even than Nawa, said the same thing. Nawa was only the voice that kept the legend alive.

Often in in the winter, when the wind drove with a roar over the prairies and came thundering up the creek, making the tepees shudder and strain, Little Wolf would listen to the wind and think it was the stampede of the buffaloes. Then he would snuggle warmly under the buffalo robe that was his blanket and would be thankful for the shelter of his home. And sometimes he would go very far down the shadow ways of sleep and would meet the buffaloes as they came up from the lake, with the water shining on their shaggy coats and their black horns gleaming in the moonlight. And the buffaloes would begin by being very terrible, shaking their great heads at him as if they intended to kill him there and then. But late they would come up close, and smell him, and change their minds, and be friendly after all.

Little Wolf was only ten years old, but he could run faster than any of his friends. And the wildest pony was not too wild for him to catch and ride. But the great thing about him was that he had no fear. He knew that if an angry bull bison or a pack of prairie wolves ran him down, there would be nothing left of him but his bones. And he was well aware that if he fell into the hands of his people’s enemies, the Assiniboins, he would be killed and scalped as neatly as could be. Yet none of these things terrified him. Only, being wise for his age, he had a clear understanding that, for the present, it was better to keep out of their way.

But of all the thoughts that ran this way and that in his quick brain, the one that galloped the hardest was the thought of the great lake to the south where the buffaloes began. And as the days lengthened and he could smell springtime on the warm blowing air, the thought grew bigger and bigger in Little Wolf’s mind. At last it was so very big that Little Wolf could not bear it any longer; and so, one morning, very early, before the village was awake, he crept out of the tepee and stole along below the junipers and tall firs till he came to the spot where the ponies were hobbled.