The young girls anticipate amusement and happiness, for they
will assist their lovers to bring in the deer to the camp; and the jest
and merry laugh, and the words of love are spoken too. The ball-play has
been forgotten by all but Harpstenah.
But it is late in the afternoon; and as they do not start till the
morning, something must be done to pass the long evening. "If this were
full," said a young hunter, kicking at the same time an empty keg that
had once contained whiskey, "if this were full, we would have a merry
night of it."
"Yes," said Grey Iron, whose age seemed to have brought him wisdom,
"the night would be merry, but where would you be the day after. Did you
not, after drinking that very whiskey, strike a white woman, for which
you were taken to the fort by the soldiers, and kept as a prisoner?"
The young man's look of mortification at this reproof did not save him
from the contemptuous sneer of his companions, for all despise the
Dahcotah who has thus been punished. No act of bravery can wipe away
his disgrace.
But Wenona sat pale and sad in her brother's wigwam.
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