o food,
no clothes, no robes and warm furs. I have no relations; all have gone to
the Sand Hills; yet, now, to-day, I ask you, take pity, be my wife."
The girl hid her face in her robe and brushed the ground with the point of
her moccasin, back and forth, back and forth; for she was thinking. After a
time she said: "True. I have refused all those rich young men, yet now the
poor one asks me, and I am glad. I will be your wife, and my people will be
happy. You are poor, but it does not matter. My father will give you
dogs. My mother will make us a lodge. My people will give us robes and
furs. You will be poor no longer."
Then the young man was happy, and he started to kiss her, but she held him
back, and said: "Wait! The Sun has spoken to me. He says I may not marry;
that I belong to him. He says if I listen to him, I shall live to great
age. But now I say: Go to the Sun. Tell him, 'She whom you spoke with
heeds your words. She has never done wrong, but now she wants to marry. I
want her for my wife.' Ask him to take that scar from your face. That will
be his sign. I will know he is pleased. But if he refuses, or if you fail
to find his lodge, then do not return to me."
"Oh!" cried the young man, "at first your words were good. I was glad. But
now it is dark. My heart is dead. Where is that far-off lodge? where the
trail, which no one yet has travelled?"
"Take courage, take courage!" said the girl; and she went to her lodge.
II
Scarface was very sad. He sat down and covered his head with his robe and
tried to think what to do. After a while he got up, and went to an old
woman who had been kind to him. "Pity me," he said. "I am very poor. I am
going away now on a long journey. Make me some moccasins."
"Where are you going?" asked the old woman. "There is no war; we are very
peaceful here."
"I do not know where I shall go," replied Scarface. "I am in trouble, but I
cannot tell you now what it is."
So the old woman made him some moccasins, seven pairs, with parfleche
soles, and also she gave him a sack of food,--pemmican of berries, pounded
meat, and dried back fat; for this old woman had a good heart. She liked
the young man.
All alone, and with a sad heart, he climbed the bluffs and stopped to take
a last look at the camp. He wondered if he would ever see his sweetheart
and the people again. "_ Hai'-yu!_ Pity me, O Sun," he prayed, and turning,
he started to find the trail.
For many days he trave
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