"Has it come to this? Spotted Adder, the Mighty, whose wigwam was once the richest of all my father's tribe. I remember that its curtains of fine skins were painted by the Man-Of-Visions himself, and told the history of the Pottawatomies since the beginning of the world. Many a heap of furs and peltries went in payment for their adornment, but--where are they now! While I have sat in darkness with my sorrow new things have become old. Yet he is accursed. Else the trouble would not have befallen him. I have heard the women talking, through my dreams. He has lain down and cannot again arise. And the White Papoose is with him! Will she be accursed, too? Fool! Why do I fear? Is she not a child of the sky, and forever safe, as Katasha said? But the touch of her arms was warm, like the clasp of the son I bore, and----" The mother's reverie ended in a very human distress. There was a rumor among her people that whoever came near the Spotted Adder would instantly be infected by whatever was the dread disease from which he suffered. That the Sun Maid's wonderful loveliness should receive a blemish seemed a thing intolerable and, in another instant, regardless of her own danger, Wahneenah had crept beneath the broken flap of bark, into a scene of squalor indescribable. Even this squaw, who knew quite well how wretched the tepees of her poorer tribesmen often were, was appalled now; and though the torn skins and strips of bark which covered the hut admitted plenty of light and air, she gasped for breath before she could speak. "My Girl-Child! My Sun Maid! Come away. Wrong, wrong to have entered here, to have made me so anxious. Come." "No, no, Other Mother! Kitty cannot come. Kitty must stay. See the poor gray squirrel? It has broked its leg. It went so--hoppety-pat, hoppety-pat, as fast as fast. I thought it was playing and just running away. So Kitty runned too. Kitty always runs away when Kitty can." "Ugh! I believe you. Come." "No, Kitty must stay. Poor sick man needs Kitty. I did give him a nice drink. Berries, too. Kitty putted them in his mouth all the time. Poor man!" Wahneenah's anger rose. Was she, a chief's daughter, to be thus flouted by a baby, a pale-face at that? Surely, there was nothing whatever spiritual now about this self-willed, spoiled creature, whom an unkind fate had imposed upon her. She stooped to lift the little one and compel obedience, but was met by a smile so fearless and happy that her arms fell to her sides. "That's a good Other Mother. Poor sick man has wanted to turn him over, and he couldn't. Kitty tried and tried, and Kitty couldn't. Now my Other Mother's come. She can. She is so beau'ful strong and kind!"