The Summary of "The Buffalo Dance"

The Buffalo Dance is all about two people, Neosho and Chanuka. They are two different people from two different tribes that are enemies. But Chanuka doesn't think that they should be fighting, so he asks for the reasoning of this. The Chief says that they are enemies just because that their ancestors hated them. Chanuka doesn't agree with this, so he just goes wandering into no man's land. While he is traveling, he comes upon another boy, Neosho. But Neosho was badly hurt. He was badly hurt with what Chanuka thought was a broken arm, so he took Neosho with him and took care of him. Then, he let Neosho go after five days. Since Neosho was from a different tribe, Chanuka was going to wait until Neosho was fully healthy to kill him.

Chanuka is gone for eleven days so he thinks he is going to get in trouble. But The Chief, however, sees a desire in him, so he is going to send Chanuka on a spy mission against the Dakotas to find out if they had a successful buffalo hunt. He gets there and figures out that they have plenty of food. Chanuka has all the evidence he needs, but he wants to get something to show that he was actually there, so he searches for something to bring back. While looking he finds out that there are some people from the Dakota that are near him and he realizes that he is in trouble.

Chanuka knows that if he would get caught, he would be pretty much dead. So he has to hide until Neosho finds out that he is there. Then, so Chanuka doesn't get discovered, he and Neosho switch moccasins. Then, Chanuka has to perform the Buffalo Dance to survive. Thanks to Neosho's act of friendship, he was able to get Chanuka away from there alive.