“But I can do nothing for two or three suns,” she said. “I can not go to the village now.”
“Why not?” asked Flora, to whom the scalp had become precious, not only because it was her father’s, but because her own fate was so nearly affected by it.
“Because I have so much to do here, that I can not get away. I must conceal both of you in some other place, as my father is going to the spirit-land, and this lodge will be full of warriors.”
“What do you mean?” asked Wilder. “Is the old medicine-man so near dead? I had not known that he was sick.”
“He is not sick. He goes to the spirit-land when he wishes to go, and the warriors come and look at him while he is dead, and go away. Then he comes back from the spirit-land, and they visit him again, when he tells them what he has seen and what will happen to them.”
“What an imposture! Do you believe that he dies, Dove-eye?”
“He goes to the spirit-land. The warriors pinch him, and prick him, and are sure that he is dead.”
“Very well done for a red-skin! When will he take leave of us?”
“To-morrow night he will go to the spirit-land, and the next morning the warriors will come to look at him. After that day I will do what my sister has asked me to do.”