Fiery Man exacted the most implicit obedience from his wife, and from all around him. He would not have brooked the slightest contradiction from her; but she did not attempt it.
In most cases an Indian wife is little more than a serving-woman to her husband. To this White Moon was accustomed from observation, and from her short experience. She trembled at her husband's voice, though against her it had never been raised in anger. But the violent passions, the abusive language, the frequent blows—these, coming from one who ought to have no power over her, made her often wish for death. Yet so great was the likeness of brother and sister, that she bowed to the tyranny of the one, from having done so to the other. Her spirit, too, was broken. She could easily submit, but not forget. When she left her child in the wigwam it was quietly sleeping; when she returned it still slept. She had been a long time away, and yet the rest of the infant appeared to have been unbroken.
She missed the girl who had promised to remain with the child. She had brought a heavy burden of wood to her lodge, and she sat down by the child to rest, and to watch its awakening.
Its unusual paleness alarmed her; she held her own breath that she might distinguish the breathing of the child, but in vain. She placed her hand before its parted lips; the warm breath of infancy did not play upon it.
She thought it strange; but death did not present itself to her mind. Going to the door of the lodge, she looked around, and saw her sister gazing, with fixed attention, towards the wigwam. This alarmed her, and she returned to her child; again she listened for its breath: she pressed its small and clammy hand. Then did the real truth flash across her. She took in her arms the infant and rushed with it into the open air.
As she stood outside calling for help, the Indians collected around her. Her sister, calm and unconcerned, approached with them and looked on.
The Indian doctors were there, and White Moon, under their direction, carried her child back to the lodge. She placed it on a buffalo-robe, which was folded on the floor. Red Head, the great medicine-man, seated himself near it. He held the sacred rattle, shaking it, and chaunting in a loud voice. He shouted to the women to stand off, for near him, on the ground, he had laid his pipe and medicine-bag.
White Moon alternately wept and hoped; she knew Red Head was a powerful medicine-man: but still her baby showed no signs of life. Despairing, at last, and frantic with grief, she broke in upon his incantations. She raised her child, and placed its little face against her breast. She knew this test would be decisive.
There was no motion, on its part, to receive the offered sustenance. She raised her despairing eyes, and they met the cold glances of her sister. Then she told Red Head there was no hope. She asked to be left alone with her dead; she wept until the power of weeping was gone: and then, until the time was come to place it in its cradle grave, she held it to her heart. She did not dare reflect on the passionate grief of the father, when he should return, and ask of her his son.
She could not rouse herself to say, what she believed to be the case, that his sister had destroyed it. There was no mark,—no apparent cause for its sudden death.