“How fast, how loud my heart beats as I listen to the messenger’s horrible tale!” she ejaculates.  “From the fresh grave of the murdered man he hurried to our wigwam.  Deliberately crossing his bare shins, he sat down unbidden beside my father, smoking a long-stemmed pipe.  He had scarce caught his breath when, panting, he began: 

“‘He was an only son, and a much-adored brother.’

“With wild, suspecting eyes he glanced at me as if I were in league with the man-killer, my lover.  My father, exhaling sweet-scented smoke, assented—­’How,’ Then interrupting the ‘Eya’ on the lips of the round-eyed talebearer, he asked, ‘My friend, will you smoke?’ He took the pipe by its red-stone bowl, and pointed the long slender stem toward the man.  ‘Yes, yes, my friend,’ replied he, and reached out a long brown arm.

“For many heart-throbs he puffed out the blue smoke, which hung like a cloud between us.  But even through the smoke-mist I saw his sharp black eyes glittering toward me.  I longed to ask what doom awaited the young murderer, but dared not open my lips, lest I burst forth into screams instead.  My father plied the question.  Returning the pipe, the man replied:  ’Oh, the chieftain and his chosen men have had counsel together.  They have agreed it is not safe to allow a man-killer loose in our midst.  He who kills one of our tribe is an enemy, and must suffer the fate of a foe.’

“My temples throbbed like a pair of hearts!

“While I listened, a crier passed by my father’s tepee.  Mounted, and swaying with his pony’s steps, he proclaimed in a loud voice these words (hark!  I hear them now!):  “Ho-po!  Give ear, all you people.  A terrible deed is done.  Two friends—­ay, brothers in heart—­have quarreled together.  Now one lies buried on the hill, while the other sits, a dreaded man-killer, within his dwelling.”  Says our chieftain:  “He who kills one of our tribe commits the offense of an enemy.  As such he must be tried.  Let the father of the dead man choose the mode of torture or taking of life.  He has suffered livid pain, and he alone can judge how great the punishment must be to avenge his wrong.”  It is done.

“’Come, every one, to witness the judgment of a father upon him who was once his son’s best friend.  A wild pony is now lassoed.  The man-killer must mount and ride the ranting beast.  Stand you all in two parallel lines from the centre tepee of the bereaved family to the wigwam opposite in the great outer ring.  Between you, in the wide space, is the given trial-way.  From the outer circle the rider must mount and guide his pony toward the centre tepee.  If, having gone the entire distance, the man-killer gains the centre tepee still sitting on the pony’s back, his life is spared and pardon given.  But should he fall, then he himself has chosen death.’