unhappy
as did this.

"My brother," said Netawis--and his voice was gentle and bitterly
sorrowful--"if you did this in guile, I have shot better indeed than
you to-day. As for Meshu-kwa, I must try to be on good terms with
her again; and as for Azoka, she is a good girl, and thinks as little
of me as I of her. Last night when you saw us . . . I remember that
I looked down on her and something reminded me . . . of one . . ."
He leaned a hand against a pole of the lodge and gripped it as the
anguish came on him and shook him in the darkness. "Damn!" cried
John a Cleeve, with a sob.

"Was that her name?" asked Ononwe gravely, hardly concealing the
relief in his voice.

But Azoka did not hear Netawis' answer as she crept back, smoothing
the snow over her traces.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE LODGES IN THE SNOW.

The fat lay six inches deep on the bear's ribs; and, being boiled
down, filled six porcupine skins.

"Said I not that Netawis would bring us good luck?" demanded
Menehwehna.

But Meshu-kwa claimed the head of her ancestress, and set it up on a
scaffold within the lodge, spreading a new blanket beneath it and
strewing tobacco-leaf in front of its nose. As though poor Azoka had
not enough misery, her mother took away her trinkets to decorate the
bear, and forced her to smear her pretty, ochred face with cinders.
Then for a whole day the whole family sat and fasted; and Azoka hated
fasting. But next morning she and Seeu-kwa swept out the lodge,
making all tidy. Pipes were lit, and Menehwehna, after blowing
tobacco-smoke into the bear's nostrils, began a long harangue on the
sad necessity which lay upon men to destroy their best friends.
His wife's eye being upon him, he made an excellent speech, though he
did not believe a word of it; but as a chief who had married the
daughter of a chief, he laid great stress upon her pedigree,
belittling his own descent from the _canicu_, or war eagle, with the
easier politeness because he knew it to be above reproach. When he
had ended, the family, Meshu-kwa included, seated themselves and ate
of the bear's flesh very heartily.

A few days later, they struck their camp and moved inland, for the
beaver were growing scarcer, and the heavy fall of snow hid their
houses and made it difficult to search the banks for washes.
But raccoon were plentiful at their new station, and easy to hunt.
Before the coming of the Cold Moon--which is January--John was set to
number the