496 The Book of Woodcraft 



"Do not fear," she said to him, "I will bring you food and 

 drmk." 



She hurried back to her lodge and got some dried meat and a 

 skin of water, put them under her robe, and returned to the 

 wovmded one. He drank much, and ate of the food. No- 

 Heart washed and bound the wound. Then she again left him, 

 telling him to lie quiet, that in the night she would return and 

 take him to her home, where she would care for him until he 

 got well. In her lodge she fixed a place for him, screening one 

 of the bed places with a large cow skin; she also partly covered 

 the smoke hole and hung a skin across the entrance, so that the 

 interior of the lodge had but little light. The women who 

 sometimes visited her would never suspect that any one was 

 concealed, and especially an enemy in a lodge where for three 

 summers no man had entered. 



It was a very dark night. Dowti in the timber there was no 

 light at all. No-Heart was obliged to extend her arms as she 

 walked, to keep from running against the trees, but she knew 

 the place so well that she had little trouble in finding the thicket, 

 and the one she had come to aid. "Arise," she said in a low 

 voice. "Arise, and follow me." 



The young man attempted to get up, but fell back heavily 

 upon the ground. "I cannot stand." he said; "my legs have 

 no strength." 



Then No-Heart cried out: "You cannot walk! I had not 

 thought but that you could walk. What shall I do? What 

 shaUIdo?" 



"You will let me carry him for you," said some one standing 

 close behind her. "I will carry him wherever you lead." 



No Heart turned with a little cry of surprise. She ould not 

 see the speaker's face in the darkness, only his dim form; but 

 she knew the voice. She was not afraid. "Lift him then," 

 she said, "and follow me." 



She herself raised the wounded one up and placed him on 

 the newcomer's back, and then led the way out of the timber, 

 across the plain, through the stockade, in which she had loosened 

 a post, and then on to her lodge. No one was about, and they 

 were not discovered. Within a fire was burning, but there was 

 no need of the light to show the girl who had helped her. He 

 was Long Elk. "We will put him here," she said, lifting the 

 skin in front of the couch she had prepared, and they laid the 



