Timid Hare | Page 3

earth?" he muttered. "And the crooked boy away too!"
The sentence was barely ended when the sound of quick, soft footsteps could be heard outside. The Stone and her son, Black Bull, were hurrying home. They had been gone all day, having gone to a clay pit miles away from the village to get a certain clay for making red dye with which The Stone wished to color some reeds for basket weaving. Night had taken then by surprise, and wolves howling in the distance made them travel as fast as the poor deformed youth could go.
[Illustration: The Stone and her son Black Bull were hurrying home.]
The Stone was the first of the two to enter the lodge. She was bent and wrinkled, and her cunning, cruel eyes opened wide with surprise as she saw her visitors.
"Ugh! what does this mean?" she asked sharply, as she looked from the brave to the cowering child still held in his strong grip. "Are you bringing a daughter of the pale-faces into my keeping?" She ended with a wicked laugh.
"Not much better--it is a child of the Mandans who fell into my hands. Better to kill her at once--a goodly scalp that!" With the words the man pointed to his captive's long and beautiful hair.
He continued: "But Bent Horn says, No. Let The Stone take her into her keeping. So it is then--Timid Hare, shall draw water for you and wait upon you and your son."
Black Bull, who had followed close upon his mother, stood staring at the captive with wild eyes. The poor fellow was small-witted, as well as deformed. He was eighteen years old, yet he had no more understanding than a small child. His face was not cruel like his mother's, however. His eyes were sad and spoke of a longing for something--but what that something was even Black Bull himself did not understand.
As the little girl looked at him a tiny hope leaped up in her heart. "He will not be unkind to me, at any rate," she decided. "And I am sorry for him that he has such a mother."
Following close upon this thought came another. It was of White Mink--dear, kind White Mink who was perhaps at this very moment weeping over the loss of her little Swift Fawn.
"But there is no Swift Fawn--she is dead, dead, dead. There is now only Timid Hare, the slave of a wicked woman."--The child shuddered at the thought. She came to herself to hear The Stone saying,
"Leave her to me and I will train her in the good ways of the Dahcotas." The man smiled grimly and went his way, and the woman turning to her charge said: "Come, don't stand there cowering and useless. Busy yourself. Pile wood upon the fire and put water in that kettle. My son and I are hungry and would eat, and the meat must yet be cooked."
With The Stone's words came a blow on Timid Hare's shoulder. It was the first one the child had ever felt, and though it did not strike hard upon the body, it fell with heavy weight upon her aching heart.
Stumbling about, she tried to do the old squaw's bidding, and the two soon had the supper ready. The Stone now served her son on his side of the fireplace, after which she herself began to eat her fill while Swift Fawn sat huddled in a dark comer, hungrily watching.
"Take that," the woman said as she finished her meal, and she threw a half-picked bone to the little girl. Then she got up, put away whatever food was left from the supper, and began to spread out some buffalo skins, first for her son's bed on his side of the tepee, then on her own side for herself to sleep on.
"You can lie where you are," she told Timid Hare, pointing to the pile of skins on which the child was crouching.
Soon afterwards The Stone and Black Bull were quietly sleeping, while the little captive, with tears rolling down her cheeks, lay thinking of the kind friends far away and of the dreadful things that might happen on the morrow. All at once she remembered the baby's sock hidden in her dress, and of White Mink's words. Perhaps--perhaps--the sock would help her. But how? She must guard it, at any rate; not even The Stone should discover it. Kind sleep was already drawing near. The tired eyes no longer shed tears. Till morning should come, Timid Hare was free from trouble.
HARD WORK
The sun, shining into the tepee through the opening over the fireplace, roused The Stone to her day's work. She lost no time in setting a task for her little slave. Handing her a needle carved from the bone of a deer and thread made of a deer's