had happened she said: "It is a hard thing you want to do; but if you
must, you must. To-night I will make some fresh magic, and you can try
again to-morrow."

Next morning High-feather asked for his breakfast; but his mother
said, "You must not have any buffalo meat, or it will spoil the magic.
You must not eat anything but the wild strawberries you find on the
prairie as you go."

Then she sewed a little bit of a mouse's whisker on to his red
feather; and he tramped away across the prairie, picking wild
strawberries and eating them as he went, till he came to the dancing
ring. As soon as he was inside the ring he turned into a little mouse,
and made friends with the family of mice that lived in a hole under
the grass; and the mother mouse promised to help him all she could.

They had not waited long when the basket came dropping down out of
the sky. The eldest sister put her head over the edge, and looked all
around, north and west and south and east and down on the ground.

"There is no man here," she said, "and I do not see any gopher; but
you must be very careful."

So they all got out of the basket, and began to dance round the ring,
drumming and singing as they went. But when they came near the mouse's
nest the eldest sister held up her hand, and they stopped dancing and
held their breath. Then she tapped on the ground and listened.

"It does not sound so hollow as it did," she said, "The mice have a
visitor."

And she tapped again, and called out, "Come and show yourselves, you
little traitors, or we will dig you up!"

But the mother mouse had made another door to her nest, just outside
the ring, working very fast with all her toes; and while the maidens
were looking for her inside the ring she came out at the other door
with all her children and scampered away across the prairie.

The maidens turned round and ran after them; all but the youngest
sister, who did not want any one to be killed; and High-feather came
out of the hole and turned himself into what he was, and caught her by
the arm.

"Come home and marry me," he said, "and dance with the Indian maidens;
and I will hunt for you, and my mother will cook for you, and you will
be much happier than up in the sky."

Her sisters came rushing round her, and begged her to go back home to
the sky with them; but she looked into the young man's eyes, and said
she would go with him wherever he went. So the other maidens went
weeping and wailing up int