The attention of the Indians was now withdrawn from their prisoners, for We-har-ka was rapidly walking towards them. Even the arrangement of her dress was distinctly visible as she approached them: her long and glossy hair disarranged purposely, to mark the intensity of her grief; the blood was still trickling from her arms; her pale face looking even paler than it was, by the moonlight and its broad shadows. She was hastening to meet her brother, yet she did not offer him one congratulation on his safe return. "My brother," she cried, "your grandfather is dead. He lies cold and still, as the large buffalo when he has ceased to struggle with our hunters. Go to his lodge and tell him of your prisoners, and your scalps. For me, I will go myself to shed tears. I will follow the fresh tracks of the deer, and by the wakeen-stone,[11] in the prairie, I will sit and weep where no eye can see me but the Great Spirit's. While the moon walks through the sky, the spirits shall hear my voice." She was listened to in silence, for the Indians always showed respect to We-har-ka; her being constantly with the war-chief had made them look upon her almost with reverence, as if she might have obtained from him some supernatural power. "The Sioux listen to the words of a woman," said the old prisoner, as We-har-ka turned towards the prairie. "Why do they not make her a war-chief, and let her take them to battle?" "We will," answered her brother, "when we go again to bring home old men. I would not have been troubled with your old carrion, but I thought to let my father return the kind treatment you once gave him; and I would kill you now, but that I would rather the women would do it." "The Sioux are brave when their prisoners are bound," again taunted the prisoner; "let them do their will: the Chippeway fears neither fire nor death." The rage of the Sioux was unbounded; the cold unconcern of their prisoner almost destroyed the pleasure of victory. The women clamorously demanded that he might be delivered over to them. They seized him, and moved forward to a large tree, whose massive trunk indicated its strength. Here they bound him with strong sinews and pieces of skin. His hands were tied in front, and a strong cord was passed about his waist, and with it he was fastened to the tree. This was all the work of the women, and they evinced by their expedition and hideous laughs the pleasure they found in their employment.