"Why have you wished to meet me, Harpstenah?" said the young man,
gloomily. "Have you come to tell me of the presents Cloudy Sky has made
you, or do you wish to say that you are ashamed to break the promise you
made me to be my wife?"
"I have come to say again that I will be your wife," she replied: "and
for the presents Cloudy Sky left for me, I have trampled them under my
feet. See, I wear near my heart the brooches you have given me."
"Women are ever dogs and liars," said Red Deer, "but why do you speak
such words to me, when you know you have agreed to marry Cloudy Sky?
Your cousin told me your father had chosen him to carry you into the
teepee of the old man. Your father beat you, and you agreed to marry
him. You are a coward to mind a little pain. Go, marry the old medicine
man; he will beat you as he has his other wives; he may strike you with
his tomahawk and kill you, as he did his first wife; or he will sell you
to the traders, as he did the other; he will tell you to steal pork and
whiskey for him, and then when it is found out, he will take you and say
you are a thief, and that he has beaten you for it.
Pages:
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326