The spirit that should watch beside my body would be offended for my sin in disobeying the counsel of the aged.

You, too, should die, he says, not by the tomahawk, as a warrior should die, but by a lingering disease--fever should enter your veins, your strength would soon be gone, you would no longer be able to defend yourself from your enemies.

Let me die, rather than bring such trouble upon you." Red Deer could not reply, for he believed that Cloudy Sky could do all that he threatened.

Nerved, then, by her devotion to her lover, her hatred of Cloudy Sky, and her faith in her dream, Harpstenah determined her heart should not fail her; she would obey the mandate of the water god; she would bury her knife in the heart of the medicine man..