unheeded in heaven.

"Ha, ha, ha! my son," my father groaned upon the first snowfall. "My
son, our food is gone. There is no one to bring me meat! My son, your
soft heart has unfitted you for everything!" Then covering his face
with the buffalo-robe, he said no more. Now while I stood out in that
cold winter morning, I was starving. For two days I had not seen any
food. But my own cold and hunger did not harass my soul as did the
whining cry of the sick old man.

Stepping again into the tepee, I untied my snow-shoes, which were
fastened to the tent-poles.

My poor mother, watching by the sick one, and faithfully heaping wood
upon the centre fire, spoke to me:

"My son, do not fail again to bring your father meat, or he will starve
to death."

"How, Ina," I answered, sorrowfully. From the tepee I started forth
again to hunt food for my aged parents. All day I tracked the white
level lands in vain. Nowhere, nowhere were there any other footprints
but my own! In the evening of this third fast-day I came back without
meat. Only a bundle of sticks for the fire I brought on my back.
Dropping the wood outside, I lifted the door-flap and set one foot
within the tepee.

There I grew dizzy and numb. My eyes swam in tears. Before me lay my
old gray-haired father sobbing like a child. In his horny hands he
clutched the buffalo-robe, and with his teeth he was gnawing off the