"I'm going to bury him," he said, in a short, hard voice.
Bluebird took out her knife and proceeded to help him.
They dug away without talking. Elk's anger grew as he worked, as if the dark silence about him was filled with a host of malicious whispering spirits.
"Lone Dog is right," he broke out, bitterly, after a few minutes. "These white people are never really our friends. They conquer us because they are rich and powerful. Then they keep us down like dogs. I'd rather we'd all been captured by the Sioux and killed outright."
"Oh, Elk, think what you're saying!" Bluebird remonstrated. "You know the soldier chiefs treat us kindly. Remember how often we used to be cold and starved in the old life, and how we lived in fear day and night of enemies, and think of the food and blankets and quiet homes we have here! And, Elk," she added, somewhat shyly, "it is good to have learned the things they have taught us. The white people's way of acting towards each other is wiser for happiness and peace of the heart than ours. We have learned that it is better not to seek revenge, haven't we, Elk?"
Elk's fierce cut at the ground expressed his mental determination to sever himself from all such opinions.
"You always talk that way, Bluebird!" he cried, irately. "But no one except a mean coward will overlook an injury, Lone Dog says."
"Oh, Elk, don't listen to the hard sour things Lone Dog says!" Bluebird beseeched.
The boy made no reply. The grave being large enough, he quietly laid the bear in it, refilled the hole, and led the way home.