“It is the Widow,” said Moh-Kwa, “who was the wife of the Great Rattlesnake of the Rocks; she will go to your tepee to be close to the heart of her husband. In her mouth the Widow will bring a message from Yellow Face to the Feather for whom he died an’ was hid beneath the careless brook.”
Thus said Moh-Kwa. An’ Strike Axe found that Moh-Kwa spoke with but one tongue; for when he stood again in his lodge the Feather lay across the door, dead an’ black with the message of Yellow Face which was sent to her in the mouth of the Widow. An’ as Strike Axe looked on the Feather, the Widow rattled joyfully where she lay coiled on the Feather’s breast; for the Widow was glad because she was near to her husband’s heart.
But Moh-Kwa was not there to look; Moh-Kwa had gone early to the bee-tree, an’ now with his nose in a honey comb was high an’ hearty up among the angry bees.
There arose no little approbative comment on the folk-lore tales of Sioux Sam, and it was common opinion that his were by odds and away the best stories to be told among us. These hearty plaudits were not without pleasant effect on Sioux Sam, and one might see his dark cheek flush to a color darker still with the joy he felt.
And yet someone has said how the American Indian is stolid and cold.
It was the Red Nosed Gentleman, as the clock struck midnight on this our last evening and we threw our last log on the coals, who suggested that the Jolly Doctor, having told the first story, should in all propriety close in the procession by furnishing the last. There was but one voice for it, and the Jolly Doctor, who would have demurred for that it seemed to lack of modesty on his side, in the end conceded the point with grace.
“This,” said the Jolly Doctor, composing himself to a comfortable position in his great chair, “this, then, shall be the story of ‘The Flim Flam Murphy.’”