Singing Stream did not hasten in her quest for bright fabrics with which to stay the hand of fate.  To the half-breed woman the journey to town was not without a certain revivifying pleasure.  The Indian in her stirred to the call of the open country.  The tight roof to the cabin on Elder Creek had not the attractions for her that it had for Sally Tumlin.  She had chafed sometimes at a house with four walls.  But now the dead and gone braves rose in her as she followed the old trail where they had so often crept to battle against their old enemies, the Crows, before the white man’s army had scattered them.  And as she drove through the foot-hill country, she told the solemn-eyed little Judith the story of the Sioux, and what a great fighting people they had been before Rodney’s people drove them from their land.  Judith was holding a doll dressed exactly like herself, in soft buckskin shirt, little trousers, and moccasins, all beautifully beaded.  In her turn she told the story to the doll.

Singing Stream told her daughter of the making of the world, as the Sioux believe the story of creation; of the “Four who Never Die”—­Sharper, or Bladder, Rabbit, Turtle, and Monster; likewise of the coming of a mighty flood on which swam the Turtle and a water-fowl in whose bill was the earth atom, from which presently the world began to grow, Turtle supporting the bird on his great back, which was hard like rock.  The rest of the myth, that deals with the rising and setting of the sun, Singing Stream could not tell her daughter, as the old Sioux chiefs did not think it wise to let their women folk know too much about matters of theology.  Nor did they relate to squaws the sun myth, with its account of much cutting-off of heads—­thinking, perhaps, with wisdom, that these good ladies saw enough of carnage in their every-day life without introducing it into their catechism.

But Singing Stream knew the story of “Sharper,” or “Bladder,” as he is called by some of the people, because he is round and his grotesquely fat figure resembles a bladder blown to bursting.  Bladder’s province it is to make a fool of himself, diving into water after plums he sees reflected there from the branches of the trees.  He dives again and again in his pursuit of folly, even tying stones to his wrists and ankles to keep himself down while he gathers the reflected fruit.  After his rescue, which he fights against valiantly, as he lies gasping on the bank of the stream, he sees the fruit on the branches above his head.  It is this same Bladder who is one of the dramatis personae in the moon myth, and that is told to women as safely without the limits of that little learning that is a dangerous thing.  Bladder met Rabbit hunting; and Bladder kept throwing his eye up into the tree-tops to look for game.  The Rabbit watched him enviously, thinking what a saving of effort it would be if he could do the same thing.  Wherefore Bladder promised to instruct him, telling him to change eyes after using