“Little Weasel has words to utter, but they are not song words nor dance words. Let the women and cowards sing and dance!”
Still the head of White Cloud was bowed, and Little Weasel laughed a strange laugh.
“Who took the scalplock of the big Sioux chief?” shouted Little Weasel. “I, Little Weasel, took it! One sleep, two sleeps, I kept it close beside me; for I am a young man and I wanted to hear the shouts of my people. But in the third sleep a great heaviness came upon me, and when I awoke my Sioux scalp lock had been stolen from me. Now I know the badger who crept upon me in my heaviness and stole my honour from me. Look! You have placed the eagle feather in his hair!”
In the hush that filled that shadowed place naught but the heavy breathing of the people was heard. Little Weasel fitted a feathered arrow to his bow.
“See!” he cried. “I do not cry about my stolen feather. I give another!”
The bow-thong twanged, the arrow sang, and lodged deep in White Cloud’s breast.
“Let White Cloud wear that feather in his breast so that the black spirits will know him! For look! Already he is among them!”
White Cloud had fallen upon his face. Little Weasel dropped his bow upon the ground, and, raising his hands above his head, he shouted into the stillness: “Fathers, I have given feather for feather!”
Then a great cry broke from the assembled braves and the women shrieked. But Little Weasel shouldered his way through the throng and went to his lodge, laughing bitterly.
That evening the fires of the feast did not roar upward into the night. There was no song; there was no babble of glad voices; there was no bubbling of kettle nor scent of meat.