And after a time of silence and deep thought, the door-flap of the lodge was pushed aside by two who came—an old man bent with many loads, and a woman in whose eyes the spring still lived. And when the two had sat down without the circle, the head chief spoke: “Let the man speak first.” Then the old man, who had brought the woman, arose. “Fathers, you see a man with a sad heart, for I have brought my daughter before you for judgment. The things which she has told me I could have buried very deep in my breast; but I am old, and the wisdom of the old is mine. Who can bury a bad thing deeper than the spirits see? “And so I am here to make sharp words against myself, for the father and the child are one. “You remember that the season of singing frogs [April] has passed three times since one of the palefaces came among us. He was a paleface, but he was not like his brothers who find gladness in doing deeds that are bad. You have not forgotten how his words and deeds were kind, his voice very good to hear, nor how his face had the beauty of a woman’s, though it was not a woman’s face. Also his hands were white as the first snow fallen on a green place; and his hair was long like the hair of our people, but it clung about his head like a brown cloud when the evening is old. “He was hungry and lean when he came among us. His pony was hungry and lean. And we took him in with glad hearts; we lit the feast fires for him; his pony we staked in our greenest places: for he was not like his brothers. “And we called him ‘the man with the singing box,’ for he brought with him a thing of wood and sinews; and over this, while we feasted, he drew a stick of wood with the hair of a pony’s tail fastened to it, making songs sweeter than those of our best women singers, and deeper than the voices of men who are glad. “Much we wondered at this, for the magic of the paleface is a great magic. And as he made the wood and sinews sing together, we forgot to eat and the feast fires fell blue; for never before had such a singing been heard in our lands. And once he made it sing a battle song that snarled like a wounded rattlesnake in a dry place, and cried like an angry warrior, and shrieked like arrows, and thundered like many pony hoofs, and wailed like the women when the band comes back with dead braves across the backs of ponies. And as he made it sing this song, even we who were wise leaped to our feet and drew forth our weapons and shouted the war cry of our people—so great was the song. And when our shouting ceased, the man made the medicine box sing low and sweet and thin like a woman crying over a sick _zhinga zhinga_ [baby] in the night. And we forgot the battle cries; we gave tears like old women. “Do you remember? This is the man of whom I speak. “Many young moons grew old and passed away, and still he lived among us, until, lo! he was even as our kinsman, for he learned the tongue of our people, being great of wit.