CHAPTER II.
In the preparations for the deer hunt, the ball-play has been forgotten.
The women are putting together what will be necessary for their comfort during their absence, and the men are examining their guns and bows and arrows.

The young girls anticipate amusement and happiness, for they will assist their lovers to bring in the deer to the camp; and the jest and merry laugh, and the words of love are spoken too.

The ball-play has been forgotten by all but Harpstenah.
But it is late in the afternoon; and as they do not start till the morning, something must be done to pass the long evening.

"If this were full," said a young hunter, kicking at the same time an empty keg that had once contained whiskey, "if this were full, we would have a merry night of it." "Yes," said Grey Iron, whose age seemed to have brought him wisdom, "the night would be merry, but where would you be the day after.

Did you not, after drinking that very whiskey, strike a white woman, for which you were taken to the fort by the soldiers, and kept as a prisoner ?" The young man's look of mortification at this reproof did not save him from the contemptuous sneer of his companions, for all despise the Dahcotah who has thus been punished.