“Ugh!” they both grunted after a thoughtful silence, shaking their heads in wonderment at so incomprehensible a thing.
Then they wrapped themselves in their blankets, and slept.
XVI
THE HEART OF A WOMAN
THE council of the fathers sat in the Big Lodge with very grave faces, for they had come together to pass judgment upon the deed of a woman. As they passed the pipe about the circle, there were no words; for in the silence the good spirits may speak, and well they knew that it is a big thing to sit in judgment.
And after a time of silence and deep thought, the door-flap of the lodge was pushed aside by two who came—an old man bent with many loads, and a woman in whose eyes the spring still lived. And when the two had sat down without the circle, the head chief spoke: “Let the man speak first.” Then the old man, who had brought the woman, arose.
“Fathers, you see a man with a sad heart, for I have brought my daughter before you for judgment. The things which she has told me I could have buried very deep in my breast; but I am old, and the wisdom of the old is mine. Who can bury a bad thing deeper than the spirits see?
“And so I am here to make sharp words against myself, for the father and the child are one.