op for man to drown sorrow!"

He swallowed two or three big mouthfuls of heartache and the little
warrior was master of the situation.

"Grandmother, my Brave will have to die! Let me tie together two of the
prettiest tails of the squirrels that he and I killed this morning, to
show to the Great Mystery what a hunter he has been. Let me paint him
myself."

This request Uncheedah could not refuse, and she left the pair alone
for a few minutes, while she went to ask Wacoota to execute Ohitika.

Every Indian boy knows that, when a warrior is about to meet death, he
must sing a death dirge. Hakadah thought of his Ohitika as a person who
would meet his death without a struggle, so he began to sing a dirge
for him, at the same time hugging him tight to himself. As if he were a
human being, he whispered in his ear:

[Illustration: He began to sing a dirge for him. _Page 140._]

"Be brave, my Ohitika! I shall remember you the first time I am upon
the war-path in the Ojibway country."

At last he heard Uncheedah talking with a man outside the teepee, so he
quickly took up his paints. Ohitika was a jet-black dog, with a silver
tip on the end of his tail and on his nose, beside one white paw and a
white star upon a protuberance between his ears. Hakadah knew that a
man who prepares for death usually paints with red and black. Nature
had partially provided Ohitika in this respect, so that only red was
required and this Hakadah supplied generously.

Then he took off a piece of red cloth and tied it around the dog's
neck; to this he fastened two of the squirrels' tails and a wing from
the oriole they had killed that morning.

Just then it occurred to him that good warriors always mourn for their
departed friends, and the usual mourning was black paint. He loosened
his black braided locks, ground a dead coal, mixed it with bear's oil
and rubbed it on his entire face.

During this time every hole in the tent was occupied with an eye. Among
the lookers-on was his grandmother. She was very near relenting. Had
she not feared the wrath of the Great Mystery, she would have been
happy to call out to the boy: "Keep your dear dog, my child!"

As it was, Hakadah came out of the teepee with his face looking like an
eclipsed moon, leading his beautiful dog, who was even handsomer than
ever with the red touches on his specks of white.

It was now Uncheedah's turn to struggle with the storm and burden in
her soul. But the boy was embo