It is Tusee on her father’s warhorse.  Thus the war party of Indian men and their faithful women vanish beyond the southern skyline.

A day’s journey brings them very near the enemy’s borderland.  Nightfall finds a pair of twin tepees nestled in a deep ravine.  Within one lounge the painted warriors, smoking their pipes and telling weird stories by the firelight, while in the other watchful women crouch uneasily about their center fire.

By the first gray light in the east the tepees are banished.  They are gone.  The warriors are in the enemy’s camp, breaking dreams with their tomahawks.  The women are hid away in secret places in the long thicketed ravine.

The day is far spent, the red sun is low over the west.

At length straggling warriors return, one by one, to the deep hollow.  In the twilight they number their men.  Three are missing.  Of these absent ones two are dead; but the third one, a young man, is a captive to the foe.

“He-he!” lament the warriors, taking food in haste.

In silence each woman, with long strides, hurries to and fro, tying large bundles on her pony’s back.  Under cover of night the war party must hasten homeward.  Motionless, with bowed head, sits a woman in her hiding-place.  She grieves for her lover.

In bitterness of spirit she hears the warriors’ murmuring words.  With set teeth she plans to cheat the hated enemy of their captive.  In the meanwhile low signals are given, and the war party, unaware of Tusee’s absence, steal quietly away.  The soft thud of pony-hoofs grows fainter and fainter.  The gradual hush of the empty ravine whirrs noisily in the ear of the young woman.  Alert for any sound of footfalls nigh, she holds her breath to listen.  Her right hand rests on a long knife in her belt.  Ah, yes, she knows where her pony is hid, but not yet has she need of him.  Satisfied that no danger is nigh, she prowls forth from her place of hiding.  With a panther’s tread and pace she climbs the high ridge beyond the low ravine.  From thence she spies the enemy’s camp-fires.

Rooted to the barren bluff the slender woman’s figure stands on the pinnacle of night, outlined against a starry sky.  The cool night breeze wafts to her burning ear snatches of song and drum.  With desperate hate she bites her teeth.

Tusee beckons the stars to witness.  With impassioned voice and uplifted face she pleads: 

“Great Spirit, speed me to my lover’s rescue!  Give me swift cunning for a weapon this night!  All-powerful Spirit, grant me my warrior-father’s heart, strong to slay a foe and mighty to save a friend!”

In the midst of the enemy’s camp-ground, underneath a temporary dance-house, are men and women in gala-day dress.  It is late in the night, but the merry warriors bend and bow their nude, painted bodies before a bright center fire.  To the lusty men’s voices and the rhythmic throbbing drum, they leap and rebound with feathered headgears waving.