One day, when he was an old man, Dry Rain rode in from his village to the white man’s trading post.
The old chief purchased a number of articles, among them some jack-knives and six hatchets. The hatchets were for his six grandsons.
The trader packed all the purchases in a big bundle. Dry Rain paid for them, mounted his pony, and rode home to his village.
When he opened his package, he noticed that the trader by mistake had put in seven hatchets.
But Dry Rain said nothing. “That extra one will do for me,” he thought. “The white men stole the Indian’s land and never gave it back; I will keep the hatchet.”
At the same time he did not feel that this would be doing just right.
In his wigwam that night he lay half-asleep and half-awake, thinking about the hatchet.
He seemed to hear two voices talking, in a tone so earnest that it sounded almost quarrelsome.
“Take back the hatchet,” said one voice. “It belongs to the white man.”
“No! do not take it back,” said the other voice. “It is right for you to keep it.”