The warm wind continued to blow, and then faint touches of green began to appear in the dead grass; there were delicate odors, the breath of the great warm south, and they knew that spring was not far away.
In a week they ran into the buffalo herd, a mighty black mass of moving millions.

The earth rumbled hollowly under the tread of a myriad feet, and the plain was black with bodies to the horizon and beyond.
They killed as many of the buffalo as they wished and after the fashion of the more northerly Indians reduced the meat to pemmican.

Then, each man bearing as much as he could conveniently carry, they began their swift journey homeward, not knowing whether they would arrive in time for the needs of the village.
Henry felt a deep concern for these new friends of his who were left behind in the valley.

He shared the anxiety of the others who feared lest they would be too late and that fact reconciled him to the retreat from the Great Plains, whose mysteries he longed to unravel.
As they went swiftly eastward the spring unfolded so fast that it seemed to Henry to come with one great jump.

They were now in the forests and everywhere the trees were laden with fresh buds, in all the open spaces the young grass was springing up, and the brooks, as if rejoicing in their new freedom from the ice-bound winter, ran in sparkling little streams between green banks.
The physical world was full of beauty to him, more so than ever because his power of feeling it had grown.