CHAPTER IV.

It would be well for the Dahcotahs if they only sought the lives of
their enemies. But they are wasting in numbers far more by their
internal dissensions than from other causes. Murder is so common among
them, that it is even less than a nine days' wonder; all that is thought
necessary is to bury the dead, and then some relative must avenge
his quarrel.

Red Earth told her lover of the threat of Shining Iron, and the young
man was thus put on his guard. The sons of Good Road's first wife were
also told of the state of things, and they told Fiery Wind that they
would take up his quarrel, glad of an opportunity to avenge their own
and their mother's wrongs. It was in the month of April, or as the
Dahcotahs say in "the moon that geese lay," that Red Earth took her
place by the side of her husband, thus asserting her right to be
mistress of his wigwam. While she occupied herself with her many duties,
she never for a moment forgot the threat of Shining Iron. But her cares
and anxieties for her husband's safety were soon over. She had not long
been a wife before her enemy lay a corpse; his life was a forfeit to his
love for her, and Red Earth had a woman's heart. Although she could but
rejoice that the fears which had tormented her were now unnecessary, yet
when she remembered how devotedly the dead warrior had loved her, how
anxiously he had tried to please her, she could not but shed a few
tears of sorrow for his death. But they were soon wiped away--not for
the world would she have had her husband see them.

The oldest sons of Good Road were true to their word--and the son of Old