"I know it," she replied; "but I fear to keep my word. They would kill
you, and the spirits of my dead brothers would haunt me for disobeying
my parents. Cloudy Sky says that if I do not marry him he will cast a
spell upon me; he says that the brightness would leave my eye, and the
color my cheek; that my step should be slow and weary, and soon would I
be laid in the earth beside my brothers. The spirit that should watch
beside my body would be offended for my sin in disobeying the counsel of
the aged. You, too, should die, he says, not by the tomahawk, as a
warrior should die, but by a lingering disease--fever should enter your
veins, your strength would soon be gone, you would no longer be able to
defend yourself from your enemies. Let me die, rather than bring such
trouble upon you."

Red Deer could not reply, for he believed that Cloudy Sky could do all
that he threatened. Nerved, then, by her devotion to her lover, her
hatred of Cloudy Sky, and her faith in her dream, Harpstenah determined
her heart should not fail her; she would obey the mandate of the water
god; she would bury her knife in the heart of the medicine man.

CHAPTER III.

In their hours for eating, the Sioux accommodate themselves to
circumstances. If food be plenty, they eat three or four times a day; if
scarce, they eat but once. Sometimes they go without food for several
days, and often they are obliged to live for weeks on the bark of
trees, skins, or anything that will save them from dying of famine.

When game and corn are plenty, the kettle is always boiling, and they
are invariably hospitable and generous, always offering to a visitor
such as they have it in their power to give.

The stars were still keeping watch, when Harpstenah was called by her
mother to assist her. The father's morning meal was prepared early, for
he was going out to hunt. Wild duck, pigeons, and snipe, could be had in
abundance; the timid grouse, too, could be roused up on the prairies.
Larger game was there, too, for the deer flew swiftly past, and had even
stopped to drink on the opposite shore of the "Spirit Lake."

When they assembled to eat, the old man lifted up his hands--"May the
Great Spirit have mercy upon us, and give me good luck in hunting."

Meat and boiled corn were eaten from wooden bowls, and the father went
his way, leaving his wife and daughter to attend to their
domestic cares.

Harpstenah was cutting wood near the lodge, when Cloudy