She had braided her hair neatly, and drawn a line of fresh red paint along the parting. Her forehead and cheeks were also touched with red.
"Are you going to a dance, Mother?" asked White Cloud.
Good Bird said nothing, but smiled as she thought of the guest who was expected and the pleasant surprise in store for her children.
The evening meal was over. Nokomis had opened her stores of maple sugar and corn in honor of Swift Elk, who had won the game of tops that day.
Whipping his winter top over level snow and high drifts alike, he had outdistanced his companions by fifty paces.
White Cloud sat by the fire drying her moccasins. She had been out sliding with her playmates until the sun left the sky. You would have thought their sleds very funny, for they were made of the curved rib bones of a large deer.
Swift Elk was studying the strange signs and markings on the lining of the wigwam. He was never tired of hearing the pictures explained, for they showed in order the chief events in his father's life.
Here was the grizzly bear that Fleet Deer had killed single-handed. For this deed of bravery he was entitled to wear an eagle's feather.
Here was the deer that was killed in time of famine, after a long and dangerous hunt.
Other pictures showed Indians in the war dance, on the war trail, surprising the foe, returning with the honors of battle, holding a council, and smoking the peace pipe.