power of Unktahe is greater than his. But you must go far away and visit
the Tetons; if you are here, they will accuse you of his death, and will
kill you. But as I have promised to marry him, no one will think that I
have murdered him. It will be long ere I see you again, but in the moon
that we gather wild rice, [Footnote: September] return, and I will be
your wife. Go, now," she added, "say to your mother that you are going
to visit your friends, and before the day comes be far away. To-morrow
Cloudy Sky gives a medicine feast, and to-morrow night Haokah will make
my heart strong, and I will kill the medicine man. His soul will travel
a long journey to the land of spirits. There let him drink, and boast,
and frighten women."

Red Deer heard her, mute with astonishment. The color mantled in her
cheek, and her determined countenance assured him that she was in
earnest. He charged her to remember the secret spells of the medicine
man. If she loved him it was far better to go with him now; they would
soon be out of the reach of her family. To this she would not listen,
and repeating to him her intention of executing all she had told him of,
she left him.

He watched her as she returned to her teepee; sometimes her form was
lost in the thick bushes, he could see her again as she made her way
along the pebbled shore, and when she had entered her teepee he
returned home.

He collected his implements of war and hunting, and, telling his mother
he was going on a long journey, he left the village.

CHAPTER V.

The feast given in honor of their medicine was celebrated the next day,
and Cloudy Sky was thus relieved of the necessity of wearing mourning
for his enemy.

His face was carefully washed of the black paint that disfigured it; his
hair, plentifully greased, was braided and ornamented. His leggins were
new, and his white blanket was marked according to Indian custom. On it
was painted a black hand, that all might know that he had killed his
enemy. But for all he did not look either young or handsome, and
Harpstenah's young friends were astonished that she witnessed the
preparations for her marriage with so much indifference.

But she was unconscious alike of their sympathy and ridicule; her soul
was occupied with the reflection that upon her energy depended her
future fate. Never did her spirit shrink from its appointed task. Nor
was she entirely governed by selfish motives; she believed herself an
instrum