After each had finished packing the kill on his horse, Chaske said:
"Let us sit down and have a smoke before we start back. Besides,
I have something to tell you which I can tell better sitting still
than I can riding along." Hake came and sat down opposite his
friend, and while they smoked Chaske said:
"My friend, we have been together for the last twenty years and I
have yet the first time to deceive you in any way, and I know I can
truthfully say the same of you. Never have I known you to deceive
me nor tell me an untruth. I have no brothers or sisters. The
only brother's love I know is yours. The only sister's love I will
know will be Pretty Feather's, for brother, last night she told me
she loved none but you and would marry you and you only. So,
brother, I am going to take my antelope to my sister-in-law's tent
and deposit it at her door. Then she will know that her wish will
be fulfilled. I thought at first that you had been playing traitor
to me and had been making love to her for yourself, but when she
explained it all to me and begged me to intercede for her to you,
I then knew that I had judged you wrongfully, and that, together
with my lost love, made me so quiet and sorrowful last night. So
now, brother, take the flower of the nation for your wife, and I
will be content to continue through life a lonely
bachelor, as never again can I give any woman the place which
Pretty Feather had in my heart.
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