"Where can The Stone be that she is not here, now that darkness covers the earth?" he muttered. "And the crooked boy away too!" The sentence was barely ended when the sound of quick, soft footsteps could be heard outside. The Stone and her son, Black Bull, were hurrying home. They had been gone all day, having gone to a clay pit miles away from the village to get a certain clay for making red dye with which The Stone wished to color some reeds for basket weaving. Night had taken then by surprise, and wolves howling in the distance made them travel as fast as the poor deformed youth could go. [Illustration: The Stone and her son Black Bull were hurrying home.] The Stone was the first of the two to enter the lodge. She was bent and wrinkled, and her cunning, cruel eyes opened wide with surprise as she saw her visitors. "Ugh! what does this mean?" she asked sharply, as she looked from the brave to the cowering child still held in his strong grip. "Are you bringing a daughter of the pale-faces into my keeping?" She ended with a wicked laugh. "Not much better--it is a child of the Mandans who fell into my hands. Better to kill her at once--a goodly scalp that!" With the words the man pointed to his captive's long and beautiful hair. He continued: "But Bent Horn says, No. Let The Stone take her into her keeping. So it is then--Timid Hare, shall draw water for you and wait upon you and your son." Black Bull, who had followed close upon his mother, stood staring at the captive with wild eyes. The poor fellow was small-witted, as well as deformed. He was eighteen years old, yet he had no more understanding than a small child. His face was not cruel like his mother's, however. His eyes were sad and spoke of a longing for something--but what that something was even Black Bull himself did not understand. As the little girl looked at him a tiny hope leaped up in her heart. "He will not be unkind to me, at any rate," she decided. "And I am sorry for him that he has such a mother." Following close upon this thought came another. It was of White Mink--dear, kind White Mink who was perhaps at this very moment weeping over the loss of her little Swift Fawn. "But there is no Swift Fawn--she is dead, dead, dead. There is now only Timid Hare, the slave of a wicked woman."--The child shuddered at the thought. She came to herself to hear The Stone saying, "Leave her to me and I will train her in the good ways of the Dahcotas." The man smiled grimly and went his way, and the woman turning to her charge said: "Come, don't stand there cowering and useless. Busy yourself. Pile wood upon the fire and put water in that kettle. My son and I are hungry and would eat, and the meat must yet be cooked." With The Stone's words came a blow on Timid Hare's shoulder. It was the first one the child had ever felt, and though it did not strike hard upon the body, it fell with heavy weight upon her aching heart.