“Then I thought awhile. If my brother was about to die, would I not have to go and help him even if I died too? If he was going crazy, then would I not have to help him, even if I had to go crazy too? So I said, ‘You must take some horses to her father and tell him how much you want the girl. Maybe then he will give her to you.’ But High Horse shook his head and groaned. ‘Her father is a man of many horses,’ he said, ‘and I have only my buffalo-runner and the old horse we got from the Nez Percés and Absorakas.’ And I said: ‘If you are not man enough to try, how can I help you?’ ‘You will see that I am man enough to try anything,’ he said, ‘and I will do just what you tell me,’ When he said that, he looked like a warrior charging. Then he jumped on his horse and galloped away towards his village. “I waited and waited, and after that I still waited a long while. It was getting dark when High Horse came riding back slowly with his chin on his chest. When he had got off his horse and sat down beside me, he just held his head in his hands for a while. Then he said, ‘The old man laughed at me. He just laughed and waved his hand for me to go away from there.’ “After I had thought awhile, I said, ‘Brother-friend, it is harder than I thought. This is something that will take a little more time. You will sleep with me tonight, and tomorrow I shall have a better plan.’ “So after we had slept, and it was morning, I said: ‘Hold fast to your pipe, brother-friend, and do not lose courage. I have a plan. The old man will not take two horses. You will offer him four horses, for I will give you Whirlwind and the horse I got from the Nez Percés and Absorakas. You will go to the old man with these. You will say how much you want the girl and that you have two good buffalo-runners, also a horse just beginning to get old and another one hardly old at all. Maybe he will not laugh at you this time. If he takes the horses, you will have the girl and we shall have only our four legs to ride. But that will be good, for we will go on the war-path _maka mani_ [earth-walking, on foot], and when we get back we shall have many, many ponies and be great warriors, and everybody will praise us and the old man will be proud of you.’ “So High Horse did as I told him. But before the sun was overhead, he came back looking even sicker than ever, and he had to groan awhile before he could tell me how the old man laughed harder than before and waved his hand to say go away and quit talking foolishness. “So I thought awhile, and then I said: ‘The old man will not take four good horses for the girl, and that is all we have. Maybe she will run away with you, and then when you come back she will be your woman and you will have your horses too.’ But that was no good either, because High Horse said he asked her when they were talking under the blanket, and she did not want to run away. She wanted to be bought like a fine woman.