With their hunting-knives they cut lengths of tamarack, and lashed them together with thongs of hide from the deer killed for the marriage feast. By means of this pole they would have lowered over the edge of the cliff a strong young brave but that Tee-hee-neh pushed him aside and took his place. Hers must be the voice to whisper in Kos-soo-kah’s ear the first word of hope; hers the hand to push aside the rocks that pinioned his body; hers the face his slowly opening eyes should see.
They lowered her to his side; and, loosing the cords that bound her, she knelt beside him, whispering in his ear, “Kos-soo-kah!” No sound came from the cold, set lips. The wide-open eyes stared unseeing at the sky. Tee-hee-neh knew that he was dead.
She did not cry aloud after the manner of Indian women in their grief, but gently bound the helpless form with the deerskin cords and raised it as high as her arms could reach when the pole was drawn upward; then waited in silence until she was lifted by the willing hands above.
When she found herself again at Kos-soo-kah’s side, she stood for an instant with eyes fixed upon the loved form, there in the cold, starless dawn of her marriage day; then with his name upon her lips she fell forward upon his breast. They drew her away, but the spirit of Tee-hee-neh had followed the spirit of Kos-soo-kah.
The two were placed together upon the funeral pyre, and with them was burned all that had been theirs. In Kos-soo-kah’s hand was the bow, but the arrow could not be found. The lovers had spirited it away. In its stead they left a pointed rock lodged in the cliff between Cho-look, the High Fall, and Le-ham-i-te, the Cañon of the Arrow-wood, in token of Kos-soo-kah’s fulfilled pledge. This rock is known to the children of Ah-wah-nee as Hum-moo, the Lost Arrow.
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“The moon floated high above Cloud’s Rest.”