The eldest maiden put her head over the edge and looked all around,
north and east and south and west.
"There is no man here," she said. So they all jumped out to have their
dance. But before they came to the beaten ring the youngest maiden
spied the gopher, and called out to her sisters to look at it.
"Away! away!" cried the eldest maiden. "No gopher would dare to come
on our dancing ground. It is a conjuror in disguise!"
So she took her youngest sister by the arm and pulled her away to the
basket, and they all jumped in and the basket went sailing up into
the sky before High-feather could get out of his gopher skin or say a
word.
The young man went home very miserable; but when his mother heard what
had happened she said: "It is a hard thing you want to do; but if you
must, you must. To-night I will make some fresh magic, and you can try
again to-morrow."
Next morning High-feather asked for his breakfast; but his mother
said, "You must not have any buffalo meat, or it will spoil the magic.
You must not eat anything but the wild strawberries you find on the
prairie as you go."
Then she sewed a little bit of a mouse's whisker on to his red
feather; and he tramped away across the prairie, picking wild
strawberries and eating them as he went, till he came to the dancing
ring.
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