Brave-Heart song for the Long-Eared One! She has escaped alone
with her charge. She is entitled to wear an eagle's feather! Look at
the arrow in her saddle! and more, she has a knife-wound in her jaw and
an arrow-cut on her hind leg.--No, those are the marks of a wolf's
teeth! She has passed through many dangers and saved two chief's sons,
who will some day make the Crows sorry for this day's work!"

The speaker was an old man, who thus addressed the fast gathering
throng.

Zeezeewin now came forward again with an eagle feather and some white
paint in her hands. The young men rubbed Nakpa down, and the feather,
marked with red to indicate her wounds, was fastened to her mane.
Shoulders and hips were touched with red paint to show her endurance in
running. Then the crier, praising her brave deed in heroic verse, led
her around the camp, inside of the circle of teepees. All the people
stood outside their lodges and listened respectfully, for the Dakota
loves well to honor the faithful and the brave.

During the next day, riders came in from the ill-fated party, bringing
the sad news of the fight and heavy loss. Late in the afternoon came
Weeko, her face swollen with crying, her beautiful hair cut short in
mourning, her garments torn and covered with dust and blood. Her
husband had fallen in the fight, and her twin boys she supposed to have
been taken captive by the Crows. Singing in a hoarse voice the praises
of her departed warrior, she entered the camp. As she approached her
sister's teepee, there stood Nakpa, still wearing her honorable
decorations. At the same moment, Zeezeewin came out to meet her with
both babies in her arms.

"Mechinkshee! mechinkshee! (my sons, my sons!)" was all that the poor
mother could say, as she all but fell from the saddle to the ground.
The despised Long Ears had not betrayed her trust.

V

SNANA'S FAWN

The Little Missouri was in her spring fulness, and the hills among
which she found her way to the Great Muddy were profusely adorned with
colors, much like those worn by the wild red man upon a holiday!
Between the gorgeous buttes and rainbow-tinted ridges there were narrow
plains, broken here and there by dry creeks or gulches, and these again
were clothed scantily with poplars and sad-colored bull-berry bushes,
while the bare spots were purple with the wild Dakota crocuses.

Upon the lowest of a series of natural terraces there stood on this May
morning a young Sioux g