Retaining its animation, it looked round the lodge as usual, and it would command its sister to go to such places where it thought she could best procure the flesh of the different animals she needed. One day the head said—
“The time is not distant when I shall be freed from this situation, but I shall have to undergo many sore evils. So the Superior Manito decrees, and I must bear all patiently.”
In a certain part of the country was a village inhabited by a numerous and warlike band of Indians. In this village was a family of ten young men, brothers. In the spring of the year the youngest of these blackened his face and fasted. His dreams were propitious, and having ended his fast, he sent secretly for his brothers at night, so that the people in the village should not be aware of their meeting. He told them how favourable his dreams had been, and that he had called them together to ask them if they would accompany him in a war excursion. They all answered they would. The third son, noted for his oddities, swinging his war-club when his brother had ceased speaking, jumped up: “Yes,” said he, “I will go, and this will be the way I will treat those we go to fight with.” With those words he struck the post in the centre of the lodge, and gave a yell. The other brothers spoke to him, saying—
“Gently, gently, Mudjikewis, when you are in other people’s lodges.” So he sat down. Then, in turn, they took the drum, sang their songs, and closed the meeting with a feast. The youngest told them not to whisper their intention to their wives, but to prepare secretly for their journey. They all promised obedience, and Mudjikewis was the first to do so.
The time for departure drew near. The youngest gave the word for them to assemble on a certain night, when they would commence their journey. Mudjikewis was loud in his demands for his moccasins, and his wife several times demanded the reason of his impatience.
“Besides,” said she, “you have a good pair on.”
“Quick, quick,” replied Mudjikewis; “since you must know, we are going on a war excursion.”
Thus he revealed the secret.
That night they met and started. The snow was on the ground, and they travelled all night lest others should follow them. When it was daylight, the leader took snow, made a ball of it, and tossing it up in the air, said—
“It was in this way I saw snow fall in my dream, so that we could not be tracked.”