rts touched with wonder and great gladness,
discharging their arrows upward in clouds and singing peace-songs.

II. THE MADNESS OF BALD EAGLE

"It was many years ago, when I was only a child," began White Ghost,
the patriarchal old chief of the Yanktonnais Sioux, "that our band was
engaged in a desperate battle with the Rees and Mandans. The cause of
the fight was a peculiar one. I will tell you about it." And he laid
aside his longstemmed pipe and settled himself to the recital.

"At that time the Yanktonnais numbered a little over forty families.
We were nicknamed by the other bands Shunkikcheka, or Domestic Dogs,
because of our owning large numbers of these animals. My father was the
head chief.

"Our favorite wintering place was a timbered tract near the mouth of the
Grand River, and it was here that we met the Blackfoot Sioux in the fall
hunt. On the opposite side of the river from our camp was the permanent
village of the Rees and Mandans, whose houses were of dirt and partly
underground. For a hundred years before this time they had planted
large gardens, and we were accustomed to buy of them corn, beans, and
pumpkins. From time to time our people had made treaties of peace with
them. Each family of the Rees had one or two buffalo boats--not round,
as the Sioux made them, but two or three skins long. In these boats they
brought quantities of dried beans and other vegetables to trade with us
for jerked buffalo meat.

"It was a great gathering and a time of general festivity and
hospitality. The Sioux young men were courting the Ree girls, and the
Ree braves were courting our girls, while the old people bartered their
produce. All day the river was alive with canoes and its banks rang with
the laughter of the youths and maidens.

"My father's younger brother, whose name was Big Whip, had a close
friend, a young man who ever after the event of which I am about to tell
you was known as Bald Eagle. They were both daring young men and very
ambitious for distinction. They had been following the Ree girls to
their canoes as they returned to their homes in the evening.

"Big Whip and his friend stood upon the river bank at sunset, one with a
quiver full of arrows upon his back while the other carried a gun under
his blanket. Nearly all the people of the other village had crossed the
river, and the chief of the Rees, whose name was Bald Eagle, went home
with his wife last of all. It was about dusk as they ente