University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

It would be well for the Dahcotahs if they only sought
the lives of their enemies. But they are wasting in numbers
far more by their internal dissensions than from other
causes. Murder is so common among them, that it is even
less than a nine days' wonder; all that is thought necessary
is to bury the dead, and then some relative must avenge his
quarrel.

Red Earth told her lover of the threat of Shining Iron,
and the young man was thus put on his guard. The sons
f Good Road's first wife were also told of the state of
things, and they told Fiery Wind that they would take up
his quarrel, glad of an opportunity to avenge their own and
their mother's wrongs. It was in the month of April, or
as the Dahcotahs say in “the moon that geese lay,” that
Red Earth took her place by the side of her husband, thus
asserting her right to be mistress of his wigwam. While she
occupied herself with her many duties, she never for a moment
forgot the threat of Shining Iron. But her cares and
anxieties for her husband's safety were soon over. She had
not long been a wife before her enemy lay a corpse; his life
was a forfeit to his love for her, and Red Earth had a
woman's heart. Although she could but rejoice that the
fears which had tormented her were now unnecessary, yet
when she remembered how devotedly the dead warrior had
loved her, how anxiously he had tried to please her, she

could not but shed a few tears of sorrow for his death. But
they were soon wiped away—not for the world would she
have had her husband see them.

The oldest sons of Good Road were true to their word—
and the son of Old Bets was not the only subject for their
vengeance. His sister was with him at the moment that
they chose to accomplish their purpose; and when an Indian
commences to shed blood, there is no knowing how
soon he will be satisfied. Shining Iron died instantly,
but the sister's wounds were not fatal—she is slowly recovering.

It was but yesterday that we visited the grave of the
dead warrior. On a hill near the St. Peters his body is
buried. The Indians have enclosed the grave, and there is
a “Wah-kun stone,” to which they sacrifice, at his head. No
one reposes near him. Alone he lies, undisturbed by aught
except the winds that sigh over him. The first flowers of
Spring are blooming on the spot where he played in childhood,
and here, where he reposes, he often sat to mourn the
unkindness of Red Earth, and vow vengeance on his successful
rival.

But he is not unwatched. His spirit is ever near, and
perhaps he will again live on earth.[4] His friends believe
that he may hold communion with Unk-ta-he,—that from
that God he will learn the mysteries of the Earth and
Water; and when he lives again in another form, he will
instruct the Dahcotahs in their religion, and be a great
medicine man.

Good Road is quite reconciled to his sons, for he says it
was a brave deed to get rid of an enemy. In vain does
Old Bets ask for vengeance on the murderers. Good Road
reminds her that Shining Iron had made a threat, and it
was not proper he should live; and the chief insisted more
upon this, when he added that these children of her's were
by a former husband, and it was natural his sons should
resent their father's preference for them.

So after all Old Bets doubts whether she, or the Chief's
first wife, has got the best of it; and as she dresses the
wounds of her daughter, she wishes that the Dahcotahs had
killed her mother instead of adopting her—lamenting, too,
that she should ever have attained to the honor of being
Good Road's wife.