Care has broken your spirit, or you would not submit to the sneers of your old friends, and the contempt of those who once feared you.

I will be your wife, and, mingling again in the feasts and customs of your race, you will soon be the bold and fearless warrior that you were when you left us." And her words were true; for the Indians soon learned that they were not at liberty to talk to Chaske of his wanderings.

He never spoke of his former wives, except to compare them with his present, who was as faithful and obedient as they were false and troublesome.

"And he.
found," says Chequered Cloud, "that there was no land like the Dahcotah's, no river like the Father of waters, and no happiness like that of following the deer across the open prairies, or of listening, in the long summer days, to the wisdom of the medicine men." And she who had loved him in his youth, and wept for him in his absence, now lies by his side--for Chaske has taken another long journey.

Death has touched him, but not lightly, and pointed to the path which leads to the Land of Spirits--and he did not go alone; for her life closed with and together their spirits watch over the mortal frames that they once tenanted.
"Look at the white woman's life," said Chequered Cloud, as she concluded the story of Chaske, "and then at the Dahcotah's.