But before we go I will come with a knife and pretend to
stab you, but I will really cut the rope that binds you so that you
can unwind it from your body as soon as the camp is out of sight
and hearing."
And so, before the camp started, the old woman came to the place
where the two children were bound. She had in her hand a knife
bound to the end of a stick which she used as a lance. She stood
over the children and cried aloud:
"You wicked girl, who have shamed your own mother, you deserve all
the punishment that is given you. But after all I do not want to
let you lie and starve. Far better kill you at once and have done
with it!" and with her stick she stabbed many times, as if to kill,
but she was really cutting the rope.
The camp moved on; but the children lay on the ground until noon
the next day. Then they began to squirm about. Soon the girl was
free, and she then set loose her little brother. They went at once
to the old woman's hut where they found the flint and steel and the
packs of dried meat.
The girl made her brother a bow and arrows and with these he killed
birds and other small game.
The boy grew up a great hunter. They became rich. They built
three great tepees, in one of which were stored rows upon rows of
parfleche bags of dried meat.
One day as the brother went out to hunt, he met a handsome young
stranger who greeted him and said to him:
"I know you are a good hunter, for I have been watching you; your
sister, too, is industrious.
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