no, a Chippeway's scalp, that she may be the most graceful of those who
dance around it. Her mother is mending the mocassins of the old man who
sleeps before the fire.

And we might go round the village and find every family differently
employed. They have no regular hours for eating or sleeping. In front of
the teepees, young men are lying on the ground, lazily playing checkers,
while their wives and sisters are cutting wood and engaged in laborious
household duties.

I said Good Road had two wives, and I would now observe that neither of
them is younger than himself. But they are as jealous of each other as
if they had just turned seventeen, and their lord and master were twenty
instead of fifty. Not a day passes that they do not quarrel, and fight
too. They throw at each other whatever is most convenient, and sticks of
wood are always at hand. And then, the sons of each wife take a part in
the battle; they first fight for their mothers, and then for
themselves--so that the chief must have been reduced to desperation long
ago if it were not for his pipe and his philosophy. Good Road's second
wife has Chippeway blood in her veins. Her mother was taken prisoner by
the Dahcotahs; they adopted her, and she became the wife of a Dahcotah
warrior. She loved her own people, and those who had adopted her too;
and in course of time her daughter attained the honorable station of a
chief's second wife. Good Road hates the Chippeways, but he fell in love
with one of their descendants, and married her. She is a good wife, and
the white people have given her the name of "Old Bets."

Last summer "Old Bets" narrowly escaped with her life. The Dahcotahs
having nothing else to do, were amusing themselves by recalling all the
Chippeways had ever done to injure them; and those who were too lazy to