News of the great victory against the Pawnee elates the returning warriors; it makes up for their disappointment in failing to find their own Pawnee to fight. Kicking Bird is deeply impressed with Dances With Wolves’ progress, a man who, only months earlier, hadn’t even seen a Native American. He’s also stunned to learn from his wife about the budding romance between Dances With Wolves and Stands With A Fist. She assures him that it is a good thing, but it rankles him.

Kicking Bird enters Dances With Wolves’ lodge and brusquely demands to know what is going on between him and Stands With A Fist. Startled, Dances With Wolves replies that he loves her and wants to marry her. Kicking Bird leaves, consults with Wind In His Hair and Stone Calf, then returns to his own lodge, where he tells Stands With A Fist, “You are no longer a widow” (275). Then, still flustered by these strange developments, he takes his favorite horse for a long ride.

Wind In His Hair and Stone Calf visit Dances With Wolves and explain that he must make a large gift to Kicking Bird, the bride’s adoptive father, but Dances With Wolves has little to offer.