which would shrink and become tightened by the action of the fire.
‘We will then see,’ they said, ‘if we cannot make it shut its eyes.’
Meantime, for several days, the sister had been waiting for the young
men to bring back the head; till, at last, getting impatient,
she went in search of it. The young men she found lying within
short distances of each other, dead, and covered with wounds.
Various other bodies lay scattered in different directions around them.
She searched for the head and sack, but they were nowhere to be found.
She raised her voice and wept, and blackened her face. Then she
walked in different directions, till she came to the place from whence
the head had been taken. Then she found the magic bow and arrows,
where the young men, ignorant of their qualities, had left them.
She thought to herself that she would find her brother’s head, and came
to a piece of rising ground, and there saw some of his paints and feathers.
These she carefully put up, and hung upon the branch of a tree till
her return.
At dusk she arrived at the first lodge of a very extensive village.
Here she used a charm, common among Indians when they wish to meet
with a kind reception. On applying to the old man and woman
of the lodge, she was kindly received. She made known her errand.
The old man promised to aid her, and told her the head was hung up before
the council-fire, and that the chiefs of the village, with their young men,
kept watch over it continually. The former are considered as manitoes.
She said she only wished to see it, and would be satisfied if she could only
get to the door of the lodge. She knew she had not sufficient power to take
it by force. ‘Come with me,’ said the Indian, ‘I will take you there.’
They went, and they took their seats near the door. The council-lodge
was filled with warriors, amusing themselves with games, and constantly
keeping up a fire to smoke the head, as they said, to make dry meat.
They saw the head move, and not knowing what to make of it, one spoke
and said: ‘Ha! ha! It is beginning to feel the effects of the smoke.’
The sister looked up from the door, and her eyes met those of her brother,
and tears rolled down the cheeks of the head. ‘Well,’ said the chief,
‘I thought we would make you do something at last. Look! look at it–
shedding tears,’ said he to those around him; and they all laughed and passed
their jokes upon it. The chief, looking around, and observing the woman,
after some time said to the man who came with her: ‘Who have you got there?
I have never seen that woman before in our village.’ ‘Yes,’ replied the man,
‘you have seen her; she is a relation of mine, and seldom goes out. She stays
at my lodge, and asked me to allow her to come with me to this place.’
In the center of the lodge sat one of those young men who are always forward,
and fond of boasting and displaying themselves before others.
‘Why,’ said he, ‘I have seen her often, and it is to this lodge I go almost
every night to court her.’ All the others laughed and continued their games.
The young man did not know he was telling a lie to the woman’s advantage,
who by that means escaped.
She returned to the man’s lodge, and immediately set out for her
own country. Coming to the spot where the bodies of her adopted
brothers lay, she placed them together, their feet toward the east.
Then taking an ax which she had, she cast it up into the air,
crying out, ‘Brothers, get up from under it, or it will fall on you.’
This she repeated three times, and the third time the brothers all arose
and stood on their feet.
Mudjikewis commenced rubbing his eyes and stretching himself.
‘Why,’ said he, ‘I have overslept myself.’ ‘No, indeed,’
said one of the others, ‘do you not know we were all killed,