e go way. We have no peace here till she
go."

"Down the river they say Bela a very pretty girl," remarked Eelip.

"Yah! What good is pretty if you crazy in the head!" retorted Neenah.
"She twenty years old and got no husband. Now she never get no
husband, because everybody on the lake know she crazy. Two, three
years ago many young men come after her. They like her because she
light-coloured, and got red in her cheeks. Me, I think she ugly like
the grass that grows under a log. Many young men come, I tell you, but
Bela spit on them and call fools. She think she better than anybody.

"Last fall Charley go up to the head of the lake and say all around
what a fine girl he got. There was a young man from the Spirit River
country, he say he take her. He come so far he not hear she crazy.
Give Charley a horse to bind the bargain. So they come back together.
It was a strong young man, and the son of a chief. He wear gold
embroidered vest, and doeskin moccasins worked with red and blue silk.
He is call Beavertail.

"He glad when he see Bela's pale forehead and red cheeks. Men are like
that. Nobody here tell him she crazy, because all want him take her
away. So he speak very nice to her. She show him her teeth back and
speak ugly. She got no shame at all for a woman. She say: 'You think
you're a man, eh? I can run faster than you. I can paddle a canoe
faster than you. I can shoot straighter than you!' Did you ever hear
anything like that?

"By and by Beavertail is mad, and he say he race her with canoes.
Everybody go to the lake to see. They want Beavertail to beat her
good. The men make bets. They start up by Big Stone Point and paddle
to the river. It was like queen's birthday at the settlement. They
come down side by side till almost there. Then Bela push ahead. Wa!
she beat him easy. She got no sense.

"After, when he come along, she push him canoe with her paddle and
turn him in the water. She laugh and paddle away. The men got go pull
Beavertail out. That night he is steal his horse back from Charley and
ride home.

"Everybody tell the story round the lake. She not get a husband now I
think. We never get rid of her, maybe. She is proud, too. She wash
herself and comb her hair all the time. Foolishness. Treat us like
dirt. She is crazy. We hate her."

Such was the conventional estimate of Bela. In the whole camp this
morning, at the sounds of strife issuing from her father's teepee, the
only head that was turned