Gale's condition of mind was not to be envied during the interval before he started. He scarcely felt the injustice to Nikumi in thus leaving her, but he could not quite reconcile with even his weak sense of her rights that he should take the child away from her, and yet he fully intended to do so. He spent much of the time with Nikumi at her summer residence, the tipi, and she treated him with the same gentle deference and quiet submissiveness that were usual to her, so completely deceiving him that he did not once surmise she knew anything of his plans. The last two or three days he occupied himself in packing a case of articles of various kinds that he had accumulated: an Indian pipe of the famous red pipestone of the Sioux country, with its long flat stem of wood cut out in various designs and decorated with feathers and bits of metal; moccasins of deer skin, handsomely beaded and trimmed with fringes, some of them made by Nikumi's own hands; specimens of the strange Mexican cloths woven from the plumage of birds, brought by the trading Mexicans up the Santa Fe trail; a pair of their beautiful blankets, one robe, a few very fine furs, among them a black bear skin of immense size, a little mat woven of the perfumed grasses, which the Indians could find but the white man never, some of the nose and ear rings worn by the squaws. Nikumi came to his quarters while he was taking these things down from the walls and shelves where she had always cared for them with so much pride. In answer to her inquiring gaze he said: "I go Nikumi, to the far eastern land, and these I shall take with me to show my friends what we had that is beautiful in the land of the Indian and the buffalo, that they wish to know all about." "And when will you return to Nikumi and Mary?" "I can not tell; I hope before many moons; will you grieve to have me go Nikumi?" "Nikumi will look every day to the rising sun and ask the Great Spirit to send her pale-faced medicine man back safely to her and the child." He put his arms about her with a strange spasm of heart relenting, realizing for a moment the wrong he was purposing to commit. But ah, the stronger taking advantage of the weaker. The strong race using for their own pleasure the weak one. "Ye that are strong ought to help the weak." He also prepared at Sarpy's trading post, and by his advice, a smaller package of such things as would be desirable for little Mary's welfare and comfort. It was greatly lacking in the articles we should consider necessary these times, but when we realize that every piece of merchandise which reached this far away post had to be transported thousands of miles by river it is matter of wonder how much there was.