"I hate them both," replied We-har-ka. "My son and two others killed some Chippeways, and they were taken, prisoners, to the Fort, because the long-knives had said we must not kill our enemies. Then the Chippeways wanted the Dacotas who murdered their friends, that their women might cut them in pieces. So the long-knives told the Dacotas they might start from the gate of the Fort, and run for their lives; but they told the Chippeways to be there too, and they might fire at them and kill them if they could. The Chippeways fired, and the three Dacotas fell. The Chippeways shouted and were glad, and the Dacota women wept. I lay on the ground many days, with my limbs bleeding. See the scars on my arms! With this very knife did I make these wounds. I, a widow, and childless, who has there been to give me food since? "When Beloved Hail was killed," continued the old woman, "the white men would not let our warriors go to war against the Chippeways. Red-boy, too, was wounded by the Chippeways, and even he could not go out to fight them. Our warriors are like children before the white men." "Red-boy was badly wounded," said Harpen. "Yes, he was badly wounded: I saw him at the time. If I were Red-boy, I would only live to revenge myself on those who had tried to take my life." While the woman talked, little Wanska sat by them, playing with her wooden doll. "Grandmother," said she, "may I take your canoe and go over to the village? You can come home with the others. I want to talk to my mother about Red-boy." "Go, go," said We-har-ka, "our brave men may no longer do brave deeds, and by the time that you are a woman, there will be no more warriors. It has been five winters since Beloved Hail was killed and Red-boy wounded, and no one has avenged them yet." The child entered the canoe and paddled towards the village, thinking all the while of what she had heard. "Grandmother says, by the time I am a woman, there will be no more warriors: what will I do then for a husband?" and thus divided between the disgrace of not being married, and the remembrance of Red-boy's wound, which she thought had occurred recently, she entered the village in a state of trepidation, which was yet exceeded by the condition in which her mother was thrown, on hearing the announcement that Red-boy was badly wounded by the Chippeways; that We-har-ka had seen the wound; that all the old women were very angry with the Chippeways and white people; then, bursting into tears, the girl of ten years added: "Mother, the Chippeways and white men are going to kill all the Dacota warriors, so that, when I am a woman, I can never have a husband!" Up rose the eyes and hands of the mother, and down went the moccasins she was making to the ground; and up and down she made her way through the village, giving the alarm, that Red-boy was killed by the Chippeways!