Turning on heels firmly planted in the earth, the woman gives a wild
spring forward, like a panther for its prey. In a husky voice she hissed
between her teeth, "I am a Dakota woman!"

From her unerring long knife the enemy falls heavily at her feet. The
Great Spirit heard Tusee's prayer on the hilltop. He gave her a
warrior's strong heart to lessen the foe by one.

A bent old woman's figure, with a bundle like a grandchild slung on her
back, walks round and round the dance-house. The wearied onlookers are
leaving in twos and threes. The tired dancers creep out of the willow
railing, and some go out at the entrance way, till the singers, too,
rise from the drum and are trudging drowsily homeward. Within the arena
the center fire lies broken in red embers. The night no longer lingers
about the willow railing, but, hovering into the dance-house, covers
here and there a snoring man whom sleep has overpowered where he sat.

The captive in his tight-binding rawhide ropes hangs in hopeless
despair. Close about him the gloom of night is slowly crouching. Yet the
last red, crackling embers cast a faint light upon his long black hair,
and, shining through the thick mats, caress his wan face with undying
hope.

Still about the dance-house the old woman prowls. Now the embers are
gray with ashes.

The old bent woman appears at the entrance way. With a cautious, groping
foot she enters. Whispering between her teeth a lullaby for her sleeping
child in her blanket, she searches for something forgotten.