At daylight the poor husband strung his bow, took a handful of arrows from his quiver, and said: "This is my fault. I have brought you to this. It is right that I should die first," and he started to go out of the timber.
"Wait," said the eldest relative. "It shall not be so. I am the first to go. I cannot stay back to see my brother die. You shall go out last." So he jumped out of the brush, and began shooting his arrows, but was soon killed.
"My brother is too far on the road alone,"[1] cried another relation, and he jumped out and fought, too. What use, one against so many? The Snakes soon had his scalp.
[Footnote 1: Meaning that his brother's spirit, or shadow, was travelling alone the road to the Sand Hills, and that he must overtake him.]
So they went out, one after another, and at last the husband was alone. He rushed out very brave, and shot his arrows as fast as he could. "Hold!" cried the Snake man to his people. "Do not kill him; catch him. This is the one my wife said to bring back alive. See! his hair is cut short." So, when the man had shot away all his arrows, they seized and tied him, and, taking the scalps of the others, returned to camp.
They took the prisoner into the lodge where his wife was. His hands were tied behind his back, and they tied his feet, too. He could not move.
As soon as the man saw his wife, he cried. He was not afraid. He did not care now how soon he died. He cried because he was thinking of all the trouble and death this woman had caused. "What have I done to you," he asked his wife, "that you should treat me this way? Did I not always use you well? I never struck you. I never made you work hard."
"What does he say?" asked the Snake man.
"He says," replied the woman, "that when you are done smoking, you must knock the ashes and fire out of your pipe on his breast."
The Snake was not a bad-hearted man, but he thought now that this woman had strong medicine, that she had Sun power; so he thought that everything must be done as she said. When the man had finished smoking, he emptied the pipe on the Piegan's breast, and the fire burned him badly.