her belt was--but, no, that would be worse than all, and she would lose
Mitiahwe, her last child, as she had lost so many others. What would she
herself do if she were in Mitiahwe's place? Ah, she would make him stay
somehow--by truth or by falsehood; by the whispered story in the long
night; by her head upon his knee before the lodge-fire, and her eyes fixed
on his, luring him, as the dream lures the dreamer into the far trail, to
find the Sun's hunting-ground, where the plains are filled with the deer
and the buffalo and the wild horse; by the smell of the cooking-pot and
the favorite spiced drink in the morning; by the child that ran to him
with his bow and arrows and the cry of the hunter--but there was no child;
she had forgotten. She was always recalling her own happy early life with
her man, and the clean-faced papooses that crowded round his knee--one
wife and many children, and the old Harvester of the Years reaping them so
fast, till the children stood up as tall as their father and chief. That
was long ago, and she had had her share--twenty-five years of happiness;
but Mitiahwe had had only four. She looked at Mitiahwe, standing still for
a moment like one rapt, then suddenly she gave a little cry. Something had
come into her mind, some solution of the problem, and she ran and stooped
over the girl and put both hands on her head.

"Mitiahwe, heart's blood of mine," she said, "the birds go south, but they
return. What matter if they go so soon, if they return soon. If the Sun
wills that the winter be dark, and he sends the Coldmaker to close the
rivers and drive the wild ones far from the arrow and the gun, yet he may
be sorry, and send a second summer--has it not been so, and the Coldmaker
has hurried away--away! The birds go south, but they will return,
Mitiahwe."

"I heard a cry in the night while my man slept," Mitiahwe answered,
looking straight before her, "and it was like the cry of a bird--calling,
calling, calling."

"But he did not hear--he was asleep beside Mitiahwe. If he did not wake,
surely it was good-luck. Thy breath upon his face kept him sleeping.
Surely it was good-luck to Mitiahwe that he did not hear."

She was smiling a little now, for she had thought of a thing which would,
perhaps, keep the man here in this lodge in the wilderness; but the time
to speak of it was not yet. She must wait and see.

Suddenly Mitiahwe got to her feet with a spring, and a light in her eyes.
"_Hai-yai!_"