an he does for the stick of
wood she is chopping. She quarrels with everybody but him, and this
prevents her from being quite forgotten.

The day of the second wife is past too, it is of no use for I her to
plait her hair and put on her ornaments; for the old chief's heart is
wrapped up in his third wife.

The girl did not love him, how could she? and he did not succeed in
talking her into the match; but he induced the parents to sell her to
him, and the young wife went weeping to the teepee of the chief.

Hers was a sad fate. She hated her husband as much as he loved her. No
presents could reconcile her to her situation. The two forsaken wives
never ceased annoying her, and their children assisted them. The young
wife had not the courage to resent their ill treatment, for the loss of
her lover had broken her heart. But that lover did not seem to be in
such despair as she was--he did not quit the village, or drown himself,
or commit any act of desperation. He lounged and smoked as much as ever.
On one occasion when Shah-co-pee was absent from the village the
lovers met.

They had to look well around them, for the two old wives were always on
the look out for something to tell of the young one; but there was no
one near. The wind whistled keenly round the bend of the river as the
Dahcotah told the weeping girl to listen to him.

When had she refused? How had she longed to hear the sound of his voice
when wearied to death with the long boastings of the old chief.

But how did her heart beat when Red Stone told her that he loved her
still--that he had only been waiting an opportunity to induce her to
leave her old husband, and go with him far away.

She hesitated a little, but not long; and when Shah-co-pee returned to
his teepee his young wife was gone--no one had seen her depart--no one
knew where to seek for her. When the old man heard that Red Stone was
gone too, his rage knew no bounds. He beat his two wives almost to
death, and would have given his handsomest pipe-stem to have seen the
faithless one again.

His passion did not last long; it would have killed him if it had. His
wives moaned all through the night, bruised and bleeding, for the fault
of their rival; while the chief had recourse to the pipe, the
never-failing refuge of the Dahcotah.

"I thought," said the chief, "that some calamity was going to happen to
me" (for, being more composed, he began to talk to the other Indians who
sat with him in h