And it happened that in the village of the Otoes was much joy and much feasting. For the bison had come back; the famine was ended.
And it was dark. The lonesome one sighted the feast fires from far off and caught the far-blown scent of boiling kettles. They had the home-smell. His heart was glad as he entered the village and went in among the feast fires. And they about the fires said: “Who walks in from the night?” And Shonga Saba said: “A lonesome man, one with many stories to tell.”
They sat him down, for stories are good with feasting. And he told a story while the meat went round and the kettles simmered and the embers crackled and went blue. And as he told, the people gathered close about to hear. They leaned forward, they breathed heavily, they stared. For his story was of a brave one who suffered much; it sounded true; there was an ache in his words. Also it had in it the muttering of war drums, the wails of women in the night, the snarl of bow thongs, the beat of hoofs.
But as the teller raised his face, glowing with the noble deeds of which he told, he saw the circled mass of staring faces, moulded with the terrors of the tale and lit blue with falling embers.
What did they see that they stared so? _The mark!_
The story-teller leaped to his feet. As a wounded man he cried out: “It is not washed away!” He threw his arms across his forehead and fled through the parting throng into the night.
And when he had run far from something that followed yet made no sound, he cast himself down on the prairie and cried to the Spirit: “Wakunda, with water I washed it away, but it is not gone! Am I a wolf to howl always in the wilderness? I have the ache for home. I wish to hear laughter and be clean. Help me to find the trail!”
All night his words felt about in the dark for Wakunda.
The next day his wanderings began anew. And after many sunlights the first frost gripped the prairie, and the snows came. More and more the lonesome one thought of the fires of his people. Through the shivering nights the tang of the home-smoke filled his nostrils; and day by day the homeache grew.
So his weary feet followed his longing, and the trail led home. But there was no greeting. In an empty lodge without the village he made a fire that held the winter off but left him shivering. And once again his woman came with sobbing and a downcast face, bringing water and meat. He ate and drank, yet thirst and hunger stayed. In the nights he looked wistfully upon the fires of his people burning little days out of the darkness. He wished to be beside them and hear the laughter, for the famine had passed, and there was joy.