The girl gathered up the
filth and went on. By and by she came to a second hole in the ice.
Here too was filth, but not so much as at the previous place. At
the third hole the ice was clean.
The girl knew now that her mother had painted her face red. She
went at once to the chief's tepee, raised the door flap and went
in. There sat her mother with the chief's son at their wedding
feast.
The girl walked up to her mother and hurled the filth in her
mother's face.
"There," she cried, "you who forsake your helpless children and
forget your husband, take that!"
And at once her mother became a hideous old woman.
The girl then went back to the lodge of the old woman, leaving the
camp in an uproar. The chief soon sent some young warriors to
seize the girl and her brother, and they were brought to his tent.
He was furious with anger.
"Let the children be bound with lariats wrapped about their bodies
and let them be left to starve. Our camp will move on," he said.
The chief's son did not put away his wife, hoping she might be
cured in some way and grow young again.
Everybody in camp now got ready to move; but the old woman came
close to the girl and said:
"In my old tepee I have dug a hole and buried a pot with punk and
steel and flint and packs of dried meat. They will tie you up like
a corpse.
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