Poor Shee-shee-banze returned to his lodge, but what was his consternation to find the door open!

“Ho! grandmother,” cried he, “is this the way you keep watch?”

The old woman started up.  “There are my daughters-in-law,” said she, pointing to the two logs of wood.  Shee-shee-banze threw himself on the ground between them.  His back was broken by coming so violently in contact with them, but that he did not mind—­he thought only of revenge, and the recovery of his sweethearts.

He waited but to get some powerful poison and prepare it, and then he stole softly back to the wigwam of Way-gee-mar-kin.  All was silent, and he crept in without making the slightest noise.  There lay the chief, with a young girl on each side of him.

They were all sound asleep, the chief lying on his back, with his mouth wide open.  Before he was aware of it, the poison was down his throat, and Shee-shee-banze had retreated quietly to his own lodge.

The next morning the cry went through the village that Way-gee-mar-kin had been found dead in his bed.  Of course it was attributed to over-indulgence at the feast.  All was grief and lamentation.  “Let us go and tell poor Shee-shee-banze,” said one, “he was so fond of Way-gee-mar-kin.”

They found him sitting on a bank, fishing.  He had been up at peep of day, to make preparation for receiving the intelligence.

He had caught two or three fish, and, extracting their bladders, had filled them with blood, and tied them under his arm.  When the friends of Way-gee-mar-kin saw him, they called out to him,—­

“Oh!  Shee-shee-banze—­your friend, Way-gee-mar-kin, is dead!”

With a gesture of despair, Shee-shee-banze drew his knife and plunged it—­not into his heart, but into the bladders filled with blood that he had prepared.  As he fell, apparently lifeless, to the ground, the messengers began to reproach themselves:  “Oh! why did we tell him so suddenly?  We might have known he would not survive it.  Poor Shee-shee-banze! he loved Way-gee-mar-kin so.”

To their great surprise, the day after the funeral, Shee-shee-banze came walking towards the wigwam of the dead chief.  As he walked, he sang, or rather chaunted to a monotonous strain,[50] the following:—­

  “Way-gee-mar-kin is dead, is dead,
  I know who killed him. 
  I guess it was I—­I guess it was I.”

All the village was aroused.  Everybody flew in pursuit of the murderer, but he evaded them, and escaped to a place of safety.

Soon after, he again made his appearance, mincing as he walked, and singing to the same strain as before,—­

  “If you wish to take and punish me,
  Let the widows come and catch me.”

It seemed a good idea, and the young women were recommended to go and entice the culprit into the village, so that the friends of the deceased could lay hold of him.

They went forth on their errand.  Shee-shee-banze would suffer them to approach, then he would dance off a little—­now he would allow them to come quite near; anon he would retreat a little before them, all the time singing,