The proud warrior father, smiling and narrowing his eyes, muttered approval, “Howo!  Hechetu!”

Like her mother, Tusee has finely pencilled eyebrows and slightly extended nostrils; but in her sturdiness of form she resembles her father.

A loyal daughter, she sits within her tepee making beaded deerskins for her father, while he longs to stave off her every suitor as all unworthy of his old heart’s pride.  But Tusee is not alone in her dwelling.  Near the entrance-way a young brave is half reclining on a mat.  In silence he watches the petals of a wild rose growing on the soft buckskin.  Quickly the young woman slips the beads on the silvery sinew thread, and works them into the pretty flower design.  Finally, in a low, deep voice, the young man begins: 

“The sun is far past the zenith.  It is now only a man’s height above the western edge of land.  I hurried hither to tell you tomorrow I join the war party.”

He pauses for reply, but the maid’s head drops lower over her deerskin, and her lips are more firmly drawn together.  He continues: 

“Last night in the moonlight I met your warrior father.  He seemed to know I had just stepped forth from your tepee.  I fear he did not like it, for though I greeted him, he was silent.  I halted in his pathway.  With what boldness I dared, while my heart was beating hard and fast, I asked him for his only daughter.

“Drawing himself erect to his tallest height, and gathering his loose robe more closely about his proud figure, he flashed a pair of piercing eyes upon me.

“‘Young man,’ said he, with a cold, slow voice that chilled me to the marrow of my bones, ’hear me.  Naught but an enemy’s scalp-lock, plucked fresh with your own hand, will buy Tusee for your wife,’ Then he turned on his heel and stalked away.”

Tusee thrusts her work aside.  With earnest eyes she scans her lover’s face.

“My father’s heart is really kind.  He would know if you are brave and true,” murmured the daughter, who wished no ill-will between her two loved ones.

Then rising to go, the youth holds out a right hand.  “Grasp my hand once firmly before I go, Hoye.  Pray tell me, will you wait and watch for my return?”

Tusee only nods assent, for mere words are vain.

At early dawn the round camp-ground awakes into song.  Men and women sing of bravery and of triumph.  They inspire the swelling breasts of the painted warriors mounted on prancing ponies bedecked with the green branches of trees.

Riding slowly around the great ring of cone-shaped tepees, here and there, a loud-singing warrior swears to avenge a former wrong, and thrusts a bare brown arm against the purple east, calling the Great Spirit to hear his vow.  All having made the circuit, the singing war party gallops away southward.

Astride their ponies laden with food and deerskins, brave elderly women follow after their warriors.  Among the foremost rides a young woman in elaborately beaded buckskin dress.  Proudly mounted, she curbs with the single rawhide loop a wild-eyed pony.