Lost Wife

[Robert Spiritwalker Murchison]

A Dakota girl married a man who promised to treat her kindly, but he did not
keep his word. He was unreasonable, faultfinding, and often beat her.
Frantic with his cruelty, she ran away. The whole village turned out to
search for her, but no trace of the missing wife was to be found. Meanwhile,
the fleeing woman had wandered about all that day and the next night. The
next day she met a man, who asked her who she was. She did not know it, but
he was not really a man, but the chief of the wolves.
"Come with me," he said, and he led her to a large village. She was amazed to
see here many wolves--gray and black, timber wolves and coyotes. It seemed as
if all the wolves in the world were there. The wolf chief led the young woman
to a great tepee and invited her in. He asked her what she ate for food.


"Buffalo meat," she answered.


He called two coyotes and bade them bring what the young woman wanted. They
bounded away and soon returned with the shoulder of a fresh-killed buffalo
calf. "How do you prepare it for eating?"asked the wolf chief.


"By boiling," answered the young woman.


Again he called the two coyotes. Away they bounded and soon brought into the
tent a small bundle. In it were punk, flint and steel--stolen, it may be,
from some camp of men. "How do you make the meat ready?" asked the wolf chief.


"I cut it into slices," answered the young woman. The coyotes were called and
in a short time fetched in a knife in its sheath. The young woman cut up the
calf's shoulder into slices and ate it. Thus she lived for a year, all the
wolves being very kind to her. At the end of that time the wolf chief said to
her:


"Your people are going off on a buffalo hunt. Tomorrow at noon they will be
here. You must then go out and meet them or they will fall on us and kill us."


The next day at about noon the young woman went to the top of a neighboring
knoll. Coming toward her were some young men riding on their ponies. She
stood up and held her hands so that they could see her. They wondered who she
was, and when they were close by gazed at her closely.


"A year ago we lost a young woman; if you are she, where have you been," they
asked.


"I have been in the wolves' village. Do not harm them," she answered.


"We will ride back and tell the people," they said. "Tomorrow again at noon,
we shall meet you."


The young woman went back to the wolf village, and the next day went again to
a neighboring knoll, though to a different one. Soon she saw the camp coming
in a long line over the prairie. First were the warriors, then the women and
tents. The young woman's father and mother were overjoyed to see her. But
when they came near her the young woman fainted, for she could not now bear
the smell of human kind. When she came to herself she said:


"You must go on a buffalo hunt, my father and all the hunters. Tomorrow you
must come again, bringing with you the tongues and choice pieces of the kill."


This he promised to do; and all the men of the camp mounted their ponies and
they had a great hunt. The next day they returned with their ponies laden
with the buffalo meat. The young woman bade them pile the meat in a great
heap between two hills which she pointed out to them. There was so much meat
that the tops of the two hills were bridged level between by the meat pile.
In the center of the pile the young woman planted a pole with a red flag. She
then began to howl like a wolf, loudly.


In a moment the earth seemed covered with wolves. They fell greedily on the
meat pile and in a short time had eaten the last scrap.


The young woman then joined her own people.


Her husband wanted her to come and live with him again. For a long time she
refused.
However, at last they became reconciled.