LAKE MANDAN 132 
‘‘Oh! why that is Little Bull looking for his son.’’ 
‘‘Looking for his son?’’ I answered. 
Yes, heis almost crazy now?’’ the Bear replied. And 
then he sat down to tell what had happened. 
The day after I left, the icé on the river rose by presure 
of water underneath, turtle shaped, and seemingly as 
solid as before the thaw between the two Indian lodges 
and my late residence among the sand hills. Bull was 
out hunting and mother and son were sitting in their 
lodge. The boy was occupied with some childish amuse- 
ment. Turning suddenly toward his mother he said :— 
‘‘Tam going to see Pawnee Talker’s books!” 
With these words he passed out through the doorway. 
The mother thinking him jesting gave no attention for 
some time. At length his long absence aroused her to 
search him up. She followed his little foot tracks by a 
fresh falling snow, out upon the ice ridge, then down 
along the river bank until she came to a huge fissure or 
crack through the ice to the rush of the channel waters. 
Here the marks of the boy’s footsteps ended. The 
mother now began to realize that her boy was drowned, 
and set up wailing sounds re-echoing along the river bank 
until the startled husband reached her side. Heled her 
away a maniac, and in three days she was dead—hang- 
ing herself to the rafters of an Indian house in the village 
at Fort Berthold. 
‘‘Do you know what I think,” said the Bear gravely 
to me in concluding, “I think the Mermaid stole that boy. 
