Within a few miles of Fort Snelling lives Checkered Cloud.  Not that she has any settled habitation; she is far too important a character for that.  Indeed she is not often two days in the same place.  Her wanderings are not, however, of any great extent, so that she can always be found when wanted.  But her wigwam is about seven miles from the fort, and she is never much farther off.  Her occupations change with the day.  She has been very busy of late, for Checkered Cloud is one of the medicine women of the Dahcotahs; and as the Indians have had a good deal of sickness among them, you might follow her from teepee to teepee, as she proceeds with the sacred rattle [Footnote:  Sacred rattle.  This is generally a gourd, but is sometimes made of bark.  Small beads are put into it.  The Sioux suppose that this rattle, in the hands of one of their medicine men or women, possesses a certain virtue to charm away sickness or evil spirits.  They shake it over a sick person, using a circular motion.  It is never, however, put in requisition against the worst spirits with which the Red Man has to contend.] in her hand, charming away the animal that has entered the body of the Dahcotah to steal his strength.

Then, she is the great legend-teller of the Dahcotahs.  If there is a merry-making in the village, Checkered Cloud must be there, to call to the minds of the revellers the traditions that have been handed down from time immemorial.

Yesterday, wrapped in her blanket, she was seated on the St. Peters, near a hole which she had cut in the ice, in order to spear the fish as they passed through the water; and to-day—­but while I am writing of her, she approaches the house; even now, her shadow falls upon the room as she passes the window.  I need not listen to her step, for her mocassined feet pass noiselessly through the hall.  The door is slowly opened, and she is before me!

How tall she is! and with what graceful dignity she offers her hand.  Seventy winters have passed over her, but the brightness of her eye is undimmed by time.  Her brow speaks of intellect—­and the white hair that is parted over it falls unplaited on her shoulders.  She folds her blanket round her and seats herself; she has a request to make, I know, but Checkered Cloud is not a beggar, she never asks aught but what she feels she has a right to claim.

“Long ago,” she says, “the Dahcotah owned lands that the white man now claims; the trees, the rivers, were all our own.  But the Great Spirit has been angry with his children; he has taken their forests and their hunting grounds, and given them to others.

“When I was young, I feared not wind nor storm.  Days have I wandered with the hunters of my tribe, that they might bring home many buffalo for food, and to make our wigwams.  Then, I cared not for cold and fatigue, for I was young and happy.  But now I am old; my children have gone before me to the ’House of Spirits’—­the tender boughs have yielded to the first rough wind of autumn, while the parent tree has stood and borne the winter’s storm.