ahcotah women. I would have gone to the ends of the earth with you,
but you despised me. You have come back, and are laughed at. Care has
broken your spirit, or you would not submit to the sneers of your old
friends, and the contempt of those who once feared you. I will be your
wife, and, mingling again in the feasts and customs of your race, you
will soon be the bold and fearless warrior that you were when you
left us."

And her words were true; for the Indians soon learned that they were not
at liberty to talk to Chaske of his wanderings. He never spoke of his
former wives, except to compare them with his present, who was as
faithful and obedient as they were false and troublesome. "And he.
found," says Chequered Cloud, "that there was no land like the
Dahcotah's, no river like the Father of waters, and no happiness like
that of following the deer across the open prairies, or of listening, in
the long summer days, to the wisdom of the medicine men."

And she who had loved him in his youth, and wept for him in his absence,
now lies by his side--for Chaske has taken another long journey. Death
has touched him, but not lightly, and pointed to the path which leads to
the Land of Spirits--and he did not go alone; for her life closed with
and together their spirits watch over the mortal frames that they
once tenanted.

"Look at the white woman's life," said Chequered Cloud, as she
concluded the story of Chaske, "and then at the Dahcotah's. You sleep on
a soft bed, while the Dahcotah woman lays her head upon the ground, with
only her blanket for a covering; when you are hungry you eat, but for
days has the Dahcotah woman wanted for food, and there was none to give
it. Your children are happy, and fear nothing; ours have crouched in the
earth at night, when the whoop and yell of the Chippeways sent terror to
their young hearts, and trembling to their tender limbs.

"And when the fire-water of the white man has maddened the senses of the
Dahcotah, so that the blow of his war club falls upon his wife instead
of his enemy, even then the Dahcotah woman must live and suffer on."
"But, Chequered Cloud, the spirit of the Dahcotah watches over the body
which remains on earth. Did you not say the soul went to the house
of spirits?"

"The Dahcotah has four souls," replied the old woman; "one wanders about
the earth, and requires food; another protects the body; the third goes
to the Land of Spirits, while the fourth forever hovers