At last her husband brought home another wife, and she was forgotten. Soon she watched him as he carved the thunder-bird on his son's cradle; and the second wife laughed at her, because she could not be a happy mother like herself. He has beaten her sometimes--for he drinks fire-water too. She might return to her mother, for her family is a powerful one, but she cannot leave her husband. She cannot forget the love of her early youth. She stays by him, for he is often sick, and she can take better care of him than his other wife, who has many young children. Wherever is man, with his proud, exacting spirit, there is woman, with her devoted and enduring love. There are many instances of heroic affection, not recorded in the traditionary annals of the Sioux; but Wenona's Rock will stand, as long as the world lasts, a monument in memory of woman's love. [Footnote 21: The Seal of Minesota, adopted in 1850, represents an Indian warrior departing on his steed: while a husbandman is in the foreground, surrounded by the implements of civilization,--the plough, axe, and rifle. The scene is located at Anthony's Falls.] [Footnote 22: On the prairies we frequently observe what the Sioux call Fairy-rings. These are circles, occasioned by the grass growing in this form, higher and of a darker colour than that around it. Medicine-Bottle, an inferior chief, living now about twenty miles from Fort Snelling, says that "they are the paths in which their ancestors danced their war-dances;" the Indians at Lac qui Parle say the same thing. In confirmation of this opinion, it may be stated, that these circles of dark grass vary about as much from true circles as do the paths in which the Sioux dance at the present time. Chequered Cloud, a medicine-woman, much esteemed among the Sioux, says "that these circles were made, in the first instance, by one of their gods, Unk tomi sapa tonka, the large black spider, for the warriors to dance in." I will observe that Dr. Williamson, a missionary among the Sioux, requested from the two Indians mentioned their opinion on this subject, telling them I had asked it. Dr. Williamson gives his own opinion, or rather observation, thus:--"It seems to me, from the appearance of these circles, that they enlarge every year: and I have thought it probable that they originated from the death of some large animal, or other like cause, destroying the common grass of the prairie and enriching the ground, thus starting grass of another kind, or weeds which grow rankly in this manner, and overshadowing, and to some extent destroying the surrounding grass, the next year taking possession of the ground from which the common grass has been destroyed, &c."