He must know what sweet words of praise the handsome woman has for him.  With both hands he spreads the meshes of the loosely woven willows, and crawls out unnoticed into the dark.

Before him stands the young woman.  Beckoning him with a slender hand, she steps backward, away from the light and the restless throng of onlookers.  He follows with impatient strides.  She quickens her pace.  He lengthens his strides.  Then suddenly the woman turns from him and darts away with amazing speed.  Clinching his fists and biting his lower lip, the young man runs after the fleeing woman.  In his maddened pursuit he forgets the dance arena.

Beside a cluster of low bushes the woman halts.  The young man, panting for breath and plunging headlong forward, whispers loud, “Pray tell me, are you a woman or an evil spirit to lure me away?”

Turning on heels firmly planted in the earth, the woman gives a wild spring forward, like a panther for its prey.  In a husky voice she hissed between her teeth, “I am a Dakota woman!”

From her unerring long knife the enemy falls heavily at her feet.  The Great Spirit heard Tusee’s prayer on the hilltop.  He gave her a warrior’s strong heart to lessen the foe by one.

A bent old woman’s figure, with a bundle like a grandchild slung on her back, walks round and round the dance-house.  The wearied onlookers are leaving in twos and threes.  The tired dancers creep out of the willow railing, and some go out at the entrance way, till the singers, too, rise from the drum and are trudging drowsily homeward.  Within the arena the center fire lies broken in red embers.  The night no longer lingers about the willow railing, but, hovering into the dance-house, covers here and there a snoring man whom sleep has overpowered where he sat.

The captive in his tight-binding rawhide ropes hangs in hopeless despair.  Close about him the gloom of night is slowly crouching.  Yet the last red, crackling embers cast a faint light upon his long black hair, and, shining through the thick mats, caress his wan face with undying hope.

Still about the dance-house the old woman prowls.  Now the embers are gray with ashes.

The old bent woman appears at the entrance way.  With a cautious, groping foot she enters.  Whispering between her teeth a lullaby for her sleeping child in her blanket, she searches for something forgotten.

Noisily snored the dreaming men in the darkest parts.  As the lisping old woman draws nigh, the captive again opens his eyes.

A forefinger she presses to her lip.  The young man arouses himself from his stupor.  His senses belie him.  Before his wide-open eyes the old bent figure straightens into its youthful stature.  Tusee herself is beside him.  With a stroke upward and downward she severs the cruel cords with her sharp blade.  Dropping her blanket from her shoulders, so that it hangs from her girdled waist like a skirt, she shakes the large bundle into a light shawl for her lover.  Quickly she spreads it over his bare back.