It was a very warm day, and the perspiration that was bursting from his forehead mingled with the black paint and slowly found its way down his face.
"Where is your husband ?" at length he asked of the mother.
"He saw a deer fly past this morning," she replied, "and he has gone to seek it, that I may dry it." "Does he come back to-night ?" "He does; he said you were to give a medicine feast to-morrow, and that he would be here." Harpstenah knew well why the medicine feast was to be given.

Cloudy Sky could not, according to the laws of the Sioux, throw off his mourning, until he had killed an enemy or given a medicine dance.

She knew that he wanted to wear a new blanket, and plait his hair, and paint his face a more becoming color.

But she knew his looks could not be improved, and she went on cutting wood, as unconcernedly as if the old war chief were her grandfather, instead of her affianced husband.

He might gain the good will of her parents, he might even propitiate the spirits of the dead: She would take his life, surely as the senseless wood yielded to the strength of the arm that was cleaving it.
"You will be at the feast too," said Cloudy Sky to the mother; "you have always foretold truly.