Women and children put on red wristbands to comfort their hearts in the prospective distress, for a winter without vegetable supplies was until then an unknown disaster.
Say Koitza also placed strips of red buckskin around her arms.
Ostensibly she mourned for her tribe; in reality it was to relieve her heart from the reproaches of her own conscience.
But when winter set in and the fever had not put in its appearance, her mind gradually changed.

She lost all fear of discovery, and finally felt proud of what she had done.

Had she not preserved herself for her own husband, for her children?
Instead of performing a crime, it was a meritorious act.

Shotaye encouraged her in such thoughts.

To her it was less the recovery of her friend than the blow dealt the Koshare, particularly her former husband, that excited her satisfaction and tickled her pride.
Say thus felt happy and at rest, but that fatal interview with her father suddenly dispelled all her fond dreams.