Earth was making her determination, her old grandmother belonging to the
village was acting upon hers.

This old woman was a perfect virago--an "embodied storm." In her time
she had cut off the hands and feet of some little Chippeway children,
and strung them, and worn them for a necklace. And she feasted yet at
the pleasant recollections this honorable exploit induced.

But so tender was she of the feelings of her own flesh and blood, that
the thought of their suffering the slightest pain was death to her.

Her son ruled his household very well for a Dahcotah. He had a number of
young warriors and hunters growing up around him, and he sometimes got
tired of their disturbances, and would use, not the rod but a stick of
wood to some purpose. Although it had the good effect of quelling the
refractory spirits of the young, it invariably fired the soul of his
aged mother. The old woman would cry and howl, and refuse to eat, for
days; till, finding this had no effect upon her hard-hearted son, she
told him she would do something that would make him sorry, the next time
he struck one of his children.

But the dutiful son paid no attention to her. He had always considered
women as being inferior to dogs, and he would as soon have thought of
giving up smoking, as of minding his mother's threats.

But while Red Earth was thinking of her absent lover, Two Stars was
beating his sons again--and when the maiden was left alone by Shining
Iron after the warning he had given her, she was attracted by the cries
of one of the old women of the village, who was struggling 'mid earth
and heaven, while old and young were running to the spot, some to render