“Trembling with excitement, and out of breath from their long, swift run, Old Man’s messengers arrived at the buffalo trap and told their wonderful news,—that men had come to marry them; that each woman was to choose the man that she thought would best suit her. The butchering of the animals ceased at once, and the women started for their camp to put on their good clothes and recomb their hair. They wanted to appear as neat and clean and well dressed as possible, before the men. Yes, all ran for their camp, all except the chief woman. Said she: ‘I cannot leave here until I finish skinning this spotted medicine calf. Go, all of you, and I will join you as soon as I can.’
“The work took more time than she thought would be required, and when she arrived in camp with the valuable skin, she found all the other women dressed and impatient to go and choose their men. ‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter how I look,’ she said. ‘I am chief; I have a name; I can go choose my man dressed just as I am. How did you say the man chief is dressed?’
“They told her again what he wore, according to what the messenger man had told them, and she said: ‘I’ll choose him. Chief, I suppose, must mate with chief.’
“And so she went right on with the others, wearing her butchering dress, all stiff with blood and grease from the neck down to the bottom of the skirt; and her moccasins were even more foul than the skirt. Her hands were caked with dried blood, and her hair was not even braided.
“Their chief leading, the women approached the waiting men, all of them standing in a line, and singing a song of greeting. Old Man stood at the head of the line, very straight and proud, and of fine appearance in his beautiful new porcupine-embroidered clothes. By these the chief woman recognized him from afar, and said to herself: ‘He is a fine looking man. I hope that he will prove to be as good of heart as he is good to look at.’ And, leading her women, she walked straight up to him and laid a hand on his arm: ‘I will take you for my man,’ she told him.
“But Old Man shrank back, his face plainly showing his loathing of such a bloody and greasy, wild-haired woman.
“‘I take you for my man,’ the woman chief repeated; and then he broke away from her hold and ran behind his men: ‘No! No! I do not want you, bloody, greasy woman,’ he cried, and went still farther off behind his men.
“The woman chief turned to her followers: ‘Go back! Go back to that little hill and there wait for me,’ she told them. And to the men she said, ‘Remain where you are until I return. I shall not be gone long.’ And with that she turned and hurried to her camp. Her women went to the hill. The men remained where they were.
“Down at her camp the chief woman took off her old clothes and bathed in the river. Then she put on her fine clothes, a pair of new moccasins, braided her hair, scented herself with sweetgrass, and returned to her women. She was now better dressed than any of them, and they had told Old Man the truth when they said that she was beautiful of face and form: she was the most beautiful woman of them all.
“Again she led her women to the line of waiting men. Again Old Man stood first, stood at the head of them. But she passed him by, as though she did not see him, and he, with a little cry, ran after her, took her by the arm, and said: ‘You are the woman for me. I am the chief of the men: you must take me!’