“How is this?” asked her father.  “Some of these young men are rich, handsome, and brave.”

“Why should I marry?” replied the girl.  “I have a rich father and mother.  Our lodge is good.  The parfleches are never empty.  There are plenty of tanned robes and soft furs for winter.  Why worry me, then?”

The Raven Bearers held a dance; they all dressed carefully and wore their ornaments, and each one tried to dance the best.  Afterwards some of them asked for this girl, but still she said no.  Then the Bulls, the Kit-foxes, and others of the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi held their dances, and all those who were rich, many great warriors, asked this man for his daughter, but to every one of them she said no.  Then her father was angry, and said:  “Why, now, this way?  All the best men have asked for you, and still you say no.  I believe you have a secret lover.”

“Ah!” said her mother.  “What shame for us should a child be born and our daughter still unmarried!” “Father! mother!” replied the girl, “pity me.  I have no secret lover, but now hear the truth.  That Above Person, the Sun, told me, ’Do not marry any of those men, for you are mine; thus you shall be happy, and live to great age’; and again he said, ’Take heed.  You must not marry.  You are mine.’”

“Ah!” replied her father.  “It must always be as he says.”  And they talked no more about it.

There was a poor young man, very poor.  His father, mother, all his relations, had gone to the Sand Hills.  He had no lodge, no wife to tan his robes or sew his moccasins.  He stopped in one lodge to-day, and to-morrow he ate and slept in another; thus he lived.  He was a good-looking young man, except that on his cheek he had a scar, and his clothes were always old and poor.

After those dances some of the young men met this poor Scarface, and they laughed at him, and said:  “Why don’t you ask that girl to marry you?  You are so rich and handsome!” Scarface did not laugh; he replied:  “Ah!  I will do as you say.  I will go and ask her.”  All the young men thought this was funny.  They laughed a great deal.  But Scarface went down by the river.  He waited by the river, where the women came to get water, and by and by the girl came along.  “Girl,” he said, “wait.  I want to speak with you.  Not as a designing person do I ask you, but openly where the Sun looks down, and all may see.”

“Speak then,” said the girl.

“I have seen the days,” continued the young man “You have refused those who are young, and rich, and brave.  Now, to-day, they laughed and said to me, ‘Why do you not ask her?’ I am poor, very poor.  I have no lodge, no food, no clothes, no robes and warm furs.  I have no relations; all have gone to the Sand Hills; yet, now, to-day, I ask you, take pity, be my wife.”

The girl hid her face in her robe and brushed the ground with the point of her moccasin, back and forth, back and forth; for she was thinking.  After a time she said:  “True.  I have refused all those rich young men, yet now the poor one asks me, and I am glad.  I will be your wife, and my people will be happy.  You are poor, but it does not matter.  My father will give you dogs.  My mother will make us a lodge.  My people will give us robes and furs.  You will be poor no longer.”