“A man does not take back a kidnapped wife,” he said, “go away.” Then she saw that she had come in vain and, weeping, she went to her parents’ home.
White-dog had always had a strong heart. But now the people were saying that he was positively foolhardy. When enemies were entrenched, he was the first to lead the attack; when a hostile camp was to be entered, he was the first to volunteer; he was always planning a raid against the Cheyenne or Sioux. But one time a Crow party returned wailing: White-dog had fallen in a reckless charge and they were bearing his corpse for burial among his people. His kinsfolk and the Foxes and all the tribe mourned his death, and the women in his family gashed themselves with knives to show their grief. But none grieved more, or inflicted more cruel wounds upon herself than Beaver-woman, and for a whole year she wore ragged clothes, and let her hair hang down disheveled. Then, because she was still good-looking, men came once more to woo her, and at length, because her brothers urged her, she married an oldish man and bore him children. And her children, as they grew up, married and had children too. But all her life she could not forget those early days when White-dog came and took her as his wife.
“Thanks, grandmother, yours is a good story and a new one, too. What times! Aren’t we happy now to live in peace, without being disturbed by Sioux or Cheyenne and without the women being kidnapped by a society of our own?”
The old woman straightened up and looked at the youth with a disdainful glance. “You boys who go to school don’t understand anything. The longer you stay there, the less sense you have. I once hoped to cut down the sacred tree in the Sun Dance! I bore White-dog’s shield when the camp moved! I danced, holding his spear, with Turtle and all the other women looking on in envy! Little-owl died for love of me! White-dog threw away his life because he could not take me back!”
Big-dog was troubled; he knew he should not sleep that night. White-hip, blind old White-hip, had passed him with a taunt. He did not mind the old fellow’s gibes, yet....
It all happened long ago. White-hip was stretched out in his lodge one night when a young kinsman named Shows-his-horse burst in upon him.