"My brother is too far on the road alone,"[1] cried another relation, and
he jumped out and fought, too. What use, one against so many? The Snakes
soon had his scalp.

[Footnote 1: Meaning that his brother's spirit, or shadow, was travelling
alone the road to the Sand Hills, and that he must overtake him.]

So they went out, one after another, and at last the husband was alone. He
rushed out very brave, and shot his arrows as fast as he could. "Hold!"
cried the Snake man to his people. "Do not kill him; catch him. This is the
one my wife said to bring back alive. See! his hair is cut short." So, when
the man had shot away all his arrows, they seized and tied him, and, taking
the scalps of the others, returned to camp.

They took the prisoner into the lodge where his wife was. His hands were
tied behind his back, and they tied his feet, too. He could not move.

As soon as the man saw his wife, he cried. He was not afraid. He did not
care now how soon he died. He cried because he was thinking of all the
trouble and death this woman had caused. "What have I done to you," he
asked his wife, "that you should treat me this way? Did I not always use
you well? I never struck you. I never made you work hard."

"What does he say?" asked the Snake man.

"He says," replied the woman, "that when you are done smoking, you must
knock the ashes and fire out of your pipe on his breast."

The Snake was not a bad-hearted man, but he thought now that this woman had
strong medicine, that she had Sun power; so he thought that everything must