n all who saw him, and even old White Buffalo, the chief, shook
his head gloomily when he saw Breaking Rock, his son, staring at the big
lodge which was so full of happiness, and so full also of many luxuries
never before seen at a trading-post on the Koonee River. The father of
Mitiahwe had been chief, but because his three sons had been killed in
battle the chieftainship had come to White Buffalo, who was of the same
blood and family. There were those who said that Mitiahwe should have been
chieftainess; but neither she nor her mother would ever listen to this,
and so White Buffalo and the tribe loved Mitiahwe because of her modesty
and goodness. She was even more to White Buffalo than Breaking Rock, and
he had been glad that Dingan the white man--Long Hand he was called--had
taken Mitiahwe for his woman. Yet behind this gladness of White Buffalo,
and that of Swift Wing, and behind the silent watchfulness of Breaking
Rock, there was a thought which must ever come when a white man mates with
an Indian maid, without priest or preacher, or writing, or book, or bond.

Yet four years had gone; and all the tribe, and all who came and went,
half-breeds, traders, and other tribes, remarked how happy was the white
man with his Indian wife. They never saw anything but light in the eyes of
Mitiahwe, nor did the old women of the tribe who scanned her face as she
came and went, and watched and waited too for what never came--not even
after four years.

Mitiahwe had been so happy that she had not really missed what never came;
though the desire to have something in her arms which was part of them
both had flushed up in her veins at times, and made her restless till her
man had come home again. Then she had forgotten the unseen for the seen,
and was happy that they two were alone together--that was the joy of it
all, so much alone together; for Swift Wing did not live with them, and,
like Breaking Rock, she watched her daughter's life, standing afar off,
since it was the unwritten law of the tribe that the wife's mother must
not cross the path or enter the home of her daughter's husband. But at
last Dingan had broken through this custom, and insisted that Swift Wing
should be with her daughter when he was away from home, as now on this
wonderful autumn morning, when Mitiahwe had been singing to the Sun, to
which she prayed for her man and for everlasting days with him.

She had spoken angrily but now, because her soul sharply resent