II

When he got back to the camp, this Blackfoot picked up his child and put it on his back, and walked round the camp mourning and crying, and the child crying, for four days and four nights, until he was exhausted and worn out, and then he fell asleep.  When the rest of the people saw him walking about mourning, and that he would not eat nor drink, their hearts were very sore, and they felt very sorry for him and for the child, for he was a man greatly thought of by the people.

While he lay there asleep, the chief of the camp came to him and woke him, and said:  “Well, friend, what have you decided on?  What is your mind?  What are you going to do?” The man answered:  “My child is lonely.  It will not eat.  It is crying for its mother.  It will not notice any one.  I am going to look for my wife.”  The chief said, “I cannot say anything.”  He went about to all the lodges and told the people that this man was going away to seek his wife.

Now there was in the camp a strong medicine man, who was not married and would not marry at all.  He had said, “When I had my dream, it told me that I must never have a wife.”  The man who had lost his wife had a very beautiful sister, who had never married.  She was very proud and very handsome.  Many men had wanted to marry her, but she would not have anything to do with any man.  The medicine man secretly loved this handsome girl, the sister of the poor man.  When he heard of this poor man’s misfortune, the medicine man was in great sorrow, and cried over it.  He sent word to the poor man, saying:  “Go and tell this man that I have promised never to take a wife, but that if he will give me his beautiful sister, he need not go to look for his wife.  I will send my secret helper in search of her.”

When the young girl heard what this medicine man had said, she sent word to him, saying, “Yes, if you bring my brother’s wife home, and I see her sitting here by his side, I will marry you, but not before.”  But she did not mean what she said.  She intended to deceive him in some way, and not to marry him at all.  When the girl sent this message to him, the medicine man sent for her and her brother to come to his lodge.  When they had come, he spoke to the poor man and said, “If I bring your wife here, are you willing to give me your sister for my wife?” The poor man answered, “Yes.”  But the young girl kept quiet in his presence, and had nothing to say.  Then the medicine man said to them:  “Go.  To-night in the middle of the night you will hear me sing.”  He sent everybody out of his lodge, and said to the people:  “I will close the door of my lodge, and I do not want any one to come in to-night, nor to look through the door.  A spirit will come to me to-night.”  He made the people know, by a sign put out before the door of his lodge, that no one must enter it, until such time as he was through making his medicine.  Then he built a fire, and began to get out all his medicine.  He unwrapped his bundle and took out his pipe and his rattles and his other things.  After a time, the fire burned down until it was only coals and his lodge was dark, and on the fire he threw sweet-scented herbs, sweet grass, and sweet pine, so as to draw his dream-helper to him.