head and ears in love with "The War Club" at that very time; but
she did not choose anybody should know it.

War Club was a flirt--yes, a male coquette--and he had broken the hearts
of half the girls in the band. Besides being a flirt, he was a fop. He
would plait his hair and put vermilion on his cheeks; and, after seeing
that his leggins were properly arranged, he would put the war eagle
feathers in his head, and folding his blanket round him, would walk
about the village, or attitudinize with all the airs of a Broadway
dandy. War Club was a great warrior too, for on his blanket was marked
the Red Hand, which showed he had killed his worst enemy--for it was his
father's enemy, and he had hung the scalp up at his father's grave.
Besides, he was a great hunter, which most of the Dahcotahs are.

No one, then, could for a moment doubt the pretensions of War Club, or
that all the girls of the village should fall in love with him; and he,
like a downright flirt, was naturally very cold and cruel to the poor
creatures who loved him so much.

Walking Wind, besides possessing many other accomplishments, such as
tanning deer-skin, making mocassins, &c., was a capital shot. On one
occasion, when the young warriors were shooting at a mark, Walking Wind
was pronounced the best shot among them, and the War Club was quite
subdued. He could bear everything else; but when Walking Wind beat him
shooting--why--the point was settled; he must fall in love with her,
and, as a natural consequence, marry her.

Walking Wind was not so easily won. She had been tormented so long
herself, that she was in duty bound to pay back in the same coin. It was
a Duncan Gray affair--only reversed. At last she yielded; her lover
gave her so many trinkets. True, they were brass and tin; but Dahcotah
maidens cannot sigh for pearls and diamonds, for they never even heard
of them; and the philosophy of the thing is just the same, since
everybody is outdone by somebody. Besides, her lover played the flute
all night long near her father's wigwam, and, not to speak of the pity
that she felt for him, Walking Wind was confident she never could sleep
until that flute stopped playing, which she knew would be as soon as
they were married. For all the world knows that no husband, either white
or copper-colored, ever troubles himself to pay any attention of that
sort to his wife, however devotedly romantic he may have been
before marriage.

Sometimes the Dahcotah l