When they came into the village, the relations of this man felt very badly because he was killed. It was coming on toward the time when they begin to clear up their patches, to plant the corn, and to hoe, and his father and mother mourned, and said, "Now we have no one to help us hoe. We are old, and he helped us; but now he is gone." So they mourned for him.
They did not visit the place where he had been killed for some time. It was now spring, and they were planting, and hoeing the corn, and when they got through their work, the whole tribe started out on the summer hunt to get buffalo, as they used to do. They started up the Loup, and when they had traveled along a number of days, they came near the place where the man had been killed. When they got there, the men who had been with him said, "This is the place where _Pa-hu-ka´-tawa_ was killed," and his father and mother and all his relations went over to the place where he had lain, to gather his bones together and then to bury them. When they got to the place, they could find no bones at all, but the arrows were there, sticking straight up in the ground; all the arrows that had been shot into the body. They wondered that they had not fallen down, for they thought that the wolves might have dragged the body, but when they looked everywhere about for the bones, they could find no sign of them anywhere. It seemed strange to them that the arrows should be there standing up in the ground, and they wondered what had become of the bones. At length they gave up looking for them, and went back to the camp. When they could not find the bones, they went on and hunted buffalo, and killed plenty, and made dried meat. After two months they started back to the village, going down the Platte River. His mother had cried so much for _Pa-hu-ka´-tawa_, that she had become blind.
One pleasant afternoon they were camped on the Platte. The evening was warm and soft and still. As the sun went down toward the earth, long shining rays seemed to come down from it to the ground. All through the air was a light smoke, and in the west the sky was red. Just as the sun was setting, the people all heard a voice calling from the other side of the river. They listened; and the voice said, "_Pa-hu-ka´-tawa_ is coming back to you." Then all the Indians jumped up, and ran across the river to meet him, for they thought perhaps he was coming back. When they had got to the other side, they looked about, but could see no one. Then they heard a voice from behind them, on the other side of the camp, which said, "He is coming from here." They all turned round and ran back to the other side of the camp; but no one was there; and in a little while they heard the voice again, on the other side of the river, saying, "He is coming." Then they knew it was only a voice and not a person. They stopped running about, and that night they talked about the voice. The next day they went on down the river, and at length got back to the main village. There they stayed six months, and by this time their dried meat was all eaten, and it was toward spring.