She learned the story about four hours before noon--the time for the execution--and at once made her way to the council hall, where in solemn silence waited the court and executioners. Chiquita pleaded that they spare her cousin. The plea was made to deaf ears. He had dealt the death blow to a Kiowa, and by their laws he had been tried and found guilty, and by their law he must suffer death. "Where is he, that I may see him?" asked Chiquita. "He has not returned." "He will come. A Ute does not fear the death that awaits him, even for a crime," proudly asserted Chiquita. "The Great Manitou will send him back. Has he not danced to Wakantanka with a buffalo skull hung to a thong that passed through the flesh of his back? Will one who has danced to the Sun be afraid to return to the Kiowa dogs? Polar Bear knows that the Utes would drive him back from the Happy Hunting Ground and be killed by them if he did not keep his promise to return. Polar Bear knows there is no escape." "Chiquita is wise in what she says. The Kiowas know that Polar Bear has been a big brave and danced the awful Sun dance, but the hour is near at hand, and no word that he comes. What have we to insure his return, except the Indian's faith in the hereafter and that the Great Manitou will punish him in the Happy Hunting Ground if he disobeys the Kiowa Council and splits his heart with a lie when he promised to return?" At this moment a shout was heard and a mounted runner quickly appeared, his horse covered with flecks of foam and nostrils deeply blowing. "Polar Bear comes. He runs like the deer of the plains, when we lived in sight of the great mountains, the home of the Utes." The council suspended all manifestations. The executioner examined his rifle. Polar Bear entered and bowed his head, then looked aloft and pointed to the sky. "I am ready," was all he said. The hour lacked ten minutes of the expired time. The executioner motioned and Polar Bear followed. Under a large oak he took his stand, stripped to the waist, a scarlet heart painted over his own. The executioner took his place, a few steps away, sighted his rifle at the painted heart, a puff of smoke, a sharp report, a gush of blood, and Polar Bear had atoned for his crime. Chiquita turned to Jack and asked: "Is there another nation in the world where their criminals return of their own accord to suffer the death penalty?"