“And he told us of a wanderer whose own people were unkind to him; a tale of one who was not of the people of whom he was born, because he loved the spirits that sing, more than a very rich man loves his herds of ponies blackening many hills where they graze. And it was of himself he told; he was the wanderer. So we loved him because of this and because of his kind words and because of the song which he made in his medicine box. “And all the while my girl here was growing taller—very good to see. Many times I said to my woman, ‘There is something growing between these two.’ And we both saw it with glad hearts, for he was a great man. “And one night in my first sleep I was awakened by a crying of sorrows better to hear than laughter—a moan that grew loud and fell again into softness like a night wind wailing in a lonesome place where thickets grow. And my woman beside me whispered, ‘It is the spirits singing.’ But the girl here only breathed very hard. I could hear her breathing in the darkness. “And I got up; I pushed the skin flap aside; I stood as though I were in a dream. For there by the tepee stood the man with the singing box at his neck. His long, white fingers worked upon the sinews; his arm drew the hair-stick up and down. His face looked to the sky and the white fires of the night were upon it. Never had I seen such a face; for it was not a man’s face nor yet a woman’s. It was the face of a good man’s spirit come back from the star-paths. I looked at his lips, for it seemed that the singing grew up from his mouth; but his lips were very still. “And my eyes made tears; for many forgotten sorrows came back to me at once, and I felt a great kindness for all things, which I could not understand. “And when he dropped his arm and looked at me, his eyes threw soft, white fire into my breast, and then I knew the singing was not for me. Once when my woman was young and still in the lodge of her father, I looked upon her with such a look. “So I gave the girl to the paleface; and for a time the singing box was still; for they made a silent music between them. And before the first frosts made the hills shiver, the palefaces who trade for furs came to our village, and the man went with them; and with him went the woman. No man can be deaf to the call of his kind; so he went. And now the woman shall speak, and you shall judge her deed.” The old man sat down and rested his face in his hands. The young woman arose to her feet. With lips parted the chiefs bent forward to catch the words which should fall from her mouth. Tall and thin she was, and shapely. But the shadows of a great toil and a great sorrow clung about her lean cheeks and under her black eyes, grown too big with much weeping. “Fathers,” she began, “I will tell you how my bad deed grew upon me; and you shall judge. I will take the punishment, for I have felt much aching of the breast and I can stand yet a little more.