least resistance. Traditions of accomplishment as we know them have no
meaning for the Indians; and the way of life for which his own
traditions have fitted him has been denied him.

How Kola! That must be what the old warrior was bellowing the day we
thought he had said he would kill us. Old Two-Hawk laughed at that when
his son Joe interpreted it in Sioux.

Old Two-Hawk explained us to his son, of whom he was manifestly very
proud. He pointed to me. "He-paleface-prints-paper"; then to Ida Mary,
"Him-paleface-trades-horses." Thus the Brule Indians distinguished us
from each other.

Joe Two-Hawk had come as a sort of emissary from the Brules. They wanted
us, he explained, to make Ammons an Indian trading post. Looking at the
corral, we felt, to our sorrow, that they had already done so. Joe
Two-Hawk said they had wood and berries in abundance along the Missouri
River, which ran through the Indian lands. They wanted to exchange them
for merchandise. And the settlers, we knew, needed the Indian
commodities.

So to the newspaper, the post office, the store, the mail route, the
heavy hauling, we added an Indian trading post, trading groceries for
fence posts; subscriptions to _The Wand_ for berries--very few of them
could read it, but they didn't mind that--it was a trade. Joe Two-Hawk
became a mediator and interpreter until Ida Mary and I learned enough of
the Sioux language to carry on. We tried to figure out a way, in this
trading, to make back our loss on the menagerie we had collected at
Ammons. Those bare store shelves worried us. Then, one morning, the old,
blind, locoed mare turned up with a fine colt by her side. We were
getting even.

And we no longer minded that the gate was open between the Indian lands
and the section of the Brule which had been thrown open to white
settlers. While the gate stood open, enmity and mutual suspicion could
not exist, and the path between it and Ammons was beaten hard and
smooth.

The Indians came in processions with loaded wagons; unloaded, turned
their horses loose on the range and sat around--men and women--for hours
at a time on floor or ground, dickering. Ida Mary became as expert at it
as they were. It was not long before _The Wand_ had legal work from
them, the settling of estates, notices pertaining to land affairs, etc.
And that led, logically enough, to Ida Mary's being appointed a notary
public.

"Want to sell your land, girls?" a man from Presho asked us one da