CHAPTER XXVI
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex Commonly are. --But I have that honourable Grief lodged here, which burns worse than Tears drown --Shakspeare.
When within twenty feet of the prisoners, the Tetons stopped, and theirleader made a sign to the old man to draw nigh. The trapper obeyed,quitting the young Pawnee with a significant look, which was received,as it was meant, for an additional pledge that he would never forgethis promise. So soon as Mahtoree found that the other had stopped withinreach of him, he stretched forth his arm, and laying a hand upon theshoulder of the attentive old man, he stood regarding him, a minute,with eyes that seemed willing to penetrate the recesses of his mostsecret thoughts.
"Is a Pale-face always made with two tongues?" he demanded, when hefound that, as usual, with the subject of this examination, he was aslittle intimidated by his present frown, as moved by any apprehensionsof the future.
"Honesty lies deeper than the skin."
"It is so. Now let my father hear me. Mahtoree has but one tongue, thegrey-head has many. They may be all straight, and none of them forked.A Sioux is no more than a Sioux, but a Pale-face is every thing! He cantalk to the Pawnee, and the Konza, and the Omawhaw, and he can talk tohis own people."
"Ay, there are linguists in the settlements that can do still more. Butwhat profits it all? The Master of Life has an ear for every language!"
"The grey-head has done wrong. He has said one thing when he meantanother. He has looked before him with his eyes, and behind him withhis mind. He has ridden the horse of a Sioux too hard; he has been thefriend of a Pawnee, and the enemy of my people."
"Teton, I am your prisoner. Though my words are white, they will notcomplain. Act your will."
"No. Mahtoree will not make a white hair red. My father is free. Theprairie is open on every side of him. But before the grey-head turns hisback on the Siouxes, let him look well at them, that he may tell his ownchief, how great is a Dahcotah!"
"I am not in a hurry to go on my path. You see a man with a white head,and no woman, Teton; therefore shall I not run myself out of breath, totell the nations of the prairies what the Siouxes are doing."
"It is good. My father has smoked with the chiefs at many councils,"returned Mahtoree, who now thought himself sufficiently sure of theother's favour to go more directly to his object. "Mahtoree will speakwith the tongue of his very dear friend and father. A young Pale-facewill listen when an old man of that nation opens his mouth. Go; myfather will make what a poor Indian says fit for a white ear."
"Speak aloud!" said the trapper, who readily understood the metaphoricalmanner, in which the Teton expressed a desire that he should become aninterpreter of his words into the English language; "speak, my young menlisten. Now, captain, and you too, friend bee-hunter, prepare yourselvesto meet the deviltries of this savage, with the stout hearts of whitewarriors. If you find yourselves giving way under his threats, just turnyour eyes on that noble-looking Pawnee, whose time is measured with ahand as niggardly, as that with which a trader in the towns givesforth the fruits of the Lord, inch by inch, in order to satisfyhis covetousness. A single look at the boy will set you both up inresolution."
"My brother has turned his eyes on the wrong path," interruptedMahtoree, with a complacency that betrayed how unwilling he was tooffend his intended interpreter.
"The Dahcotah will speak to my young men?"
"After he has sung in the ear of the flower of the Pale-faces."
"The Lord forgive the desperate villain!" exclaimed the old man inEnglish. "There are none so tender, or so young, or so innocent, as toescape his ravenous wishes. But hard words and cold looks will profitnothing; therefore it will be wise to speak him fair. Let Mahtoree openhis mouth."
"Would my father cry out, that the women and children should hear thewisdom of chiefs! We will go into the lodge and whisper."
As the Teton ended, he pointed significantly towards a tent, vividlyemblazoned with the history of one of his own boldest and most commendedexploits, and which stood a little apart from the rest, as if to denoteit was the residence of some privileged individual of the band. Theshield and quiver at its entrance were richer than common, and the highdistinction of a fusee, attested the importance of its proprietor. Inevery other particular it was rather distinguished by signs of povertythan of wealth. The domestic utensils were fewer in number and simplerin their forms, than those to be seen about the openings of the meanestlodges, nor was there a single one of those high-prized articles ofcivilised life, which were occasionally bought of the traders, inbargains that bore so hard on the ignorant natives. All these had beenbestowed, as they had been acquired, by the generous chief, on hissubordinates, to purchase an influence that might render him the masterof their lives and persons; a species of wealth that was certainly morenoble in itself, and far dearer to his ambition.
The old man well knew this to be the lodge of Mahtoree, and, inobedience to the sign of the chief, he held his way towards it with slowand reluctant steps. But there were others present, who were equallyinterested in the approaching conference, whose apprehensions werenot to be so easily suppressed. The watchful eye and jealous earsof Middleton had taught him enough to fill his soul with horribleforebodings. With an incredible effort he succeeded in gaining his feet,and called aloud to the retiring trapper--
"I conjure you, old man, if the love you bore my parents was more thanwords, or if the love you bear your God is that of a Christian man,utter not a syllable that may wound the ear of that innocent--"
Exhausted in spirit and fettered in limbs, he then fell, like aninanimate log, to the earth, where he lay like one dead.
Paul had however caught the clue and completed the exhortation, in hispeculiar manner.
"Harkee, old trapper," he shouted, vainly endeavouring at the same timeto make a gesture of defiance with his hand; "if you ar' about to playthe interpreter, speak such words to the ears of that damnable savage,as becomes a white man to use, and a heathen to hear. Tell him, from me,that if he does or says the thing that is uncivil to the girl, calledNelly Wade, that I'll curse him with my dying breath; that I'll prayfor all good Christians in Kentucky to curse him; sitting and standing;eating and drinking, fighting, praying, or at horse-races; in-doorsand outdoors; in summer or winter, or in the month of March in shortI'll--ay, it ar' a fact, morally true--I'll haunt him, if the ghost of aPale-face can contrive to lift itself from a grave made by the hands ofa Red-skin!"
Having thus ventured the most terrible denunciation he could devise, andthe one which, in the eyes of the honest bee-hunter, there seemedthe greatest likelihood of his being able to put in execution, he wasobliged to await the fruits of his threat, with that resignation whichwould be apt to govern a western border-man who, in addition to theprospects just named, had the advantage of contemplating them in fettersand bondage. We shall not detain the narrative, to relate the quaintmorals with which he next endeavoured to cheer the drooping spiritsof his more sensitive companion, or the occasional pithy and peculiarbenedictions that he pronounced, on all the bands of the Dahcotahs,commencing with those whom he accused of stealing or murdering, on thebanks of the distant Mississippi, and concluding, in terms of suitableenergy, with the Teton tribe. The latter more than once received fromhis lips curses as sententious and as complicated as that celebratedanathema of the church, for a knowledge of which most unletteredProtestants are indebted to the pious researches of the worthy TristramShandy. But as Middleton recovered from his exhaustion he was fain toappease the boisterous temper of his associate, by admonishing him ofthe uselessness of such denunciations, and of the possibility of theirhastening the very evil he deprecated, by irritating the resentmentsof a race, who were sufficiently fierce and lawless, even in their mostpacific moods.
In the mean time the trapper and the Sioux chief pursued their way tothe lodge. The former had watched with painf
ul interest the expressionof Mahtoree's eye, while the words of Middleton and Paul were pursuingtheir footsteps, but the mien of the Indian was far too much restrainedand self-guarded, to permit the smallest of his emotions to escapethrough any of those ordinary outlets, by which the condition of thehuman volcano is commonly betrayed. His look was fastened on the littlehabitation they approached; and, for the moment, his thoughts appearedto brood alone on the purposes of this extraordinary visit.
The appearance of the interior of the lodge corresponded with itsexterior. It was larger than most of the others, more finished in itsform, and finer in its materials; but there its superiority ceased.Nothing could be more simple and republican than the form of living thatthe ambitious and powerful Teton chose to exhibit to the eyes of hispeople. A choice collection of weapons for the chase, some three or fourmedals, bestowed by the traders and political agents of the Canadas asa homage to, or rather as an acknowledgment of, his rank, with a few ofthe most indispensable articles of personal accommodation, composedits furniture. It abounded in neither venison, nor the wild-beef of theprairies; its crafty owner having well understood that the liberalityof a single individual would be abundantly rewarded by the dailycontributions of a band. Although as pre-eminent in the chase as in war,a deer or a buffaloe was never seen to enter whole into his lodge. Inreturn, an animal was rarely brought into the encampment, that did notcontribute to support the family of Mahtoree. But the policy of thechief seldom permitted more to remain than sufficed for the wants of theday, perfectly assured that all must suffer before hunger, the bane ofsavage life, could lay its fell fangs on so important a victim.
Immediately beneath the favourite bow of the chief, and encircled in asort of magical ring of spears, shields, lances and arrows, all of whichhad in their time done good service, was suspended the mysterious andsacred medicine-bag. It was highly-wrought in wampum, and profuselyornamented with beads and porcupine's quills, after the most cunningdevices of Indian ingenuity. The peculiar freedom of Mahtoree'sreligious creed has been more than once intimated, and by a singularspecies of contradiction, he appeared to have lavished his attentionson this emblem of a supernatural agency, in a degree that was preciselyinverse to his faith. It was merely the manner in which the Siouximitated the well-known expedient of the Pharisees, "in order that theymight be seen of men."
The tent had not, however, been entered by its owner since his returnfrom the recent expedition. As the reader has already anticipated, ithad been made the prison of Inez and Ellen. The bride of Middleton wasseated on a simple couch of sweet-scented herbs covered with skins.She had already suffered so much, and witnessed so many wild andunlooked-for events, within the short space of her captivity, that everyadditional misfortune fell with a diminished force on her seeminglydevoted head. Her cheeks were bloodless, her dark and usually animatedeye was contracted in an expression of settled concern, and her formappeared shrinking and sensitive, nearly to extinction. But in the midstof these evidences of natural weakness, there were at times such an airof pious resignation, such gleams of meek but holy hope lighting hercountenance, as might well have rendered it a question whether thehapless captive was most a subject of pity, or of admiration. All theprecepts of father Ignatius were riveted in her faithful memory, andnot a few of his pious visions were floating before her imagination.Sustained by so sacred resolutions, the mild, the patient and theconfiding girl was bowing her head to this new stroke of Providence,with the same sort of meekness as she would have submitted to any otherprescribed penitence for her sins, though nature, at moments, warredpowerfully, with so compelled a humility.
On the other hand, Ellen had exhibited far more of the woman, andconsequently of the passions of the world. She had wept until her eyeswere swollen and red. Her cheeks were flushed and angry, and her wholemien was distinguished by an air of spirit and resentment, that was nota little, however, qualified by apprehensions for the future. In short,there was that about the eye and step of the betrothed of Paul, whichgave a warranty that should happier times arrive, and the constancy ofthe bee-hunter finally meet with its reward, he would possess apartner every way worthy to cope with his own thoughtless and buoyanttemperament.
There was still another and a third figure in that little knot offemales. It was the youngest, the most highly gifted, and, until now,the most favoured of the wives of the Teton. Her charms had not beenwithout the most powerful attraction in the eyes of her husband, untilthey had so unexpectedly opened on the surpassing loveliness of a womanof the Pale-faces. From that hapless moment the graces, the attachment,the fidelity of the young Indian, had lost their power to please. Stillthe complexion of Tachechana, though less dazzling than that of herrival, was, for her race, clear and healthy. Her hazel eye had thesweetness and playfulness of the antelope's; her voice was soft andjoyous as the song of the wren, and her happy laugh was the very melodyof the forest. Of all the Sioux girls, Tachechana (or the Fawn) wasthe lightest-hearted and the most envied. Her father had been adistinguished brave, and her brothers had already left their bones on adistant and dreary war-path. Numberless were the warriors, who had sentpresents to the lodge of her parents, but none of them were listened tountil a messenger from the great Mahtoree had come. She was his thirdwife, it is true, but she was confessedly the most favoured of them all.Their union had existed but two short seasons, and its fruits now laysleeping at her feet, wrapped in the customary ligatures of skin andbark, which form the swaddlings of an Indian infant.
At the moment, when Mahtoree and the trapper arrived at the opening ofthe lodge, the young Sioux wife was seated on a simple stool, turningher soft eyes, with looks that varied, like her emotions, with love andwonder, from the unconscious child to those rare beings, who hadfilled her youthful and uninstructed mind with so much admiration andastonishment. Though Inez and Ellen had passed an entire day in hersight, it seemed as if the longings of her curiosity were increasingwith each new gaze. She regarded them as beings of an entirely differentnature and condition from the females of the prairie. Even the mysteryof their complicated attire had its secret influence on her simple mind,though it was the grace and charms of sex, to which nature has madeevery people so sensible, that most attracted her admiration. Butwhile her ingenuous disposition freely admitted the superiority of thestrangers over the less brilliant attractions of the Dahcotah maidens,she had seen no reason to deprecate their advantages. The visit that shewas now about to receive, was the first which her husband had madeto the tent since his return from the recent inroad, and he was everpresent to her thoughts, as a successful warrior, who was not ashamed,in the moments of inaction, to admit the softer feelings of a father anda husband.
We have every where endeavoured to show that while Mahtoree was in allessentials a warrior of the prairies, he was much in advance ofhis people in those acquirements which announce the dawnings ofcivilisation. He had held frequent communion with the traders and troopsof the Canadas, and the intercourse had unsettled many of those wildopinions which were his birthright, without perhaps substituting anyothers of a nature sufficiently definite to be profitable. His reasoningwas rather subtle than true, and his philosophy far more audacious thanprofound. Like thousands of more enlightened beings, who fancy theyare able to go through the trials of human existence without any othersupport than their own resolutions, his morals were accommodating andhis motive selfish. These several characteristics will be understoodalways with reference to the situation of the Indian, though littleapology is needed for finding resemblances between men, who essentiallypossess the same nature, however it may be modified by circumstances.
Notwithstanding the presence of Inez and Ellen, the entrance of theTeton warrior into the lodge of his favourite wife, was made with thetread and mien of a master. The step of his moccasin was noiseless,but the rattling of his bracelets, and of the silver ornaments of hisleggings, sufficed to announce his approach, as he pushed aside the skincovering of the opening of the tent, and stood in the presence of itsinmates. A faint cry of
pleasure burst from the lips of Tachechana inthe suddenness of her surprise, but the emotion was instantly suppressedin that subdued demeanour which should characterise a matron of hertribe. Instead of returning the stolen glance of his youthful andsecretly rejoicing wife, Mahtoree moved to the couch, occupied by hisprisoners, and placed himself in the haughty, upright attitude of anIndian chief, before their eyes. The old man had glided past him, andalready taken a position suited to the office he had been commanded tofill.
Surprise kept the females silent and nearly breathless. Thoughaccustomed to the sight of savage warriors, in the horrid panoply oftheir terrible profession, there was something so startling in theentrance, and so audacious in the inexplicable look of their conqueror,that the eyes of both sunk to the earth, under a feeling of terror andembarrassment. Then Inez recovered herself, and addressing the trapper,she demanded, with the dignity of an offended gentlewoman, though withher accustomed grace, to what circumstance they owed this extraordinaryand unexpected visit. The old man hesitated; but clearing his throat,like one who was about to make an effort to which he was little used, heventured on the following reply--
"Lady," he said, "a savage is a savage, and you are not to look for theuses and formalities of the settlements on a bleak and windy prairie.As these Indians would say, fashions and courtesies are things so light,that they would blow away. As for myself, though a man of the forest, Ihave seen the ways of the great, in my time, and I am not to learn thatthey differ from the ways of the lowly. I was long a serving-man in myyouth, not one of your beck-and-nod runners about a household, but a manthat went through the servitude of the forest with his officer, and welldo I know in what manner to approach the wife of a captain. Now, had Ithe ordering of this visit, I would first have hemmed aloud at the door,in order that you might hear that strangers were coming, and then I--"
"The manner is indifferent," interrupted Inez, too anxious to await theprolix explanations of the old man; "why is the visit made?"
"Therein shall the savage speak for himself. The daughters of thePale-faces wish to know why the Great Teton has come into his lodge?"
Mahtoree regarded his interrogator with a surprise, which showed howextraordinary he deemed the question. Then placing himself in a postureof condescension, after a moment's delay, he answered--
"Sing in the ears of the dark-eye. Tell her the lodge of Mahtoree isvery large, and that it is not full. She shall find room in it, and noneshall be greater than she. Tell the light-hair, that she too may stay inthe lodge of a brave, and eat of his venison. Mahtoree is a great chief.His hand is never shut."
"Teton," returned the trapper, shaking his head in evidence of thestrong disapprobation with which he heard this language, "the tongue ofa Red-skin must be coloured white, before it can make music in the earsof a Pale-face. Should your words be spoken, my daughters would shuttheir ears, and Mahtoree would seem a trader to their eyes. Now listento what comes from a grey-head, and then speak accordingly. My peopleis a mighty people. The sun rises on their eastern and sets on theirwestern border. The land is filled with bright-eyed and laughing girls,like these you see--ay, Teton, I tell no lie," observing his auditor tostart with an air of distrust--"bright-eyed and pleasant to behold, asthese before you."
"Has my father a hundred wives!" interrupted the savage, laying hisfinger on the shoulder of the trapper, with a look of curious interestin the reply.
"No, Dahcotah. The Master of Life has said to me, Live alone; your lodgeshall be the forest; the roof of your wigwam, the clouds. But, thoughnever bound in the secret faith which, in my nation, ties one man to onewoman, often have I seen the workings of that kindness which bringsthe two together. Go into the regions of my people; you will see thedaughters of the land, fluttering through the towns like many-colouredand joyful birds in the season of blossoms. You will meet them, singingand rejoicing, along the great paths of the country, and you willhear the woods ringing with their laughter. They are very excellent tobehold, and the young men find pleasure in looking at them."
"Hugh," ejaculated the attentive Mahtoree.
"Ay, well may you put faith in what you hear, for it is no lie. But whena youth has found a maiden to please him, he speaks to her in a voiceso soft, that none else can hear. He does not say, My lodge is empty andthere is room for another; but shall I build, and will the virgin showme near what spring she would dwell? His voice is sweeter than honeyfrom the locust, and goes into the ear thrilling like the song of awren. Therefore, if my brother wishes his words to be heard, he mustspeak with a white tongue."
Mahtoree pondered deeply, and in a wonder that he did not attempt toconceal. It was reversing all the order of society, and, according tohis established opinions, endangering the dignity of a chief, for awarrior thus to humble himself before a woman. But as Inez sat beforehim, reserved and imposing in air, utterly unconscious of his object,and least of all suspecting the true purport of so extraordinarya visit, the savage felt the influence of a manner to which he wasunaccustomed. Bowing his head, in acknowledgment of his error, hestepped a little back, and placing himself in an attitude of easydignity, he began to speak with the confidence of one who had been noless distinguished for eloquence, than for deeds in arms. Keeping hiseyes riveted on the unconscious bride of Middleton, he proceeded in thefollowing words--
"I am a man with a red skin, but my eyes are dark. They have been opensince many snows. They have seen many things--they know a brave from acoward. When a boy, I saw nothing but the bison and the deer. I went tothe hunts, and I saw the cougar and the bear. This made Mahtoree a man.He talked with his mother no more. His ears were open to the wisdom ofthe old men. They told him every thing--they told him of the Big-knives.He went on the war-path. He was then the last; now, he is the first.What Dahcotah dare say he will go before Mahtoree into the huntinggrounds of the Pawnees? The chiefs met him at their doors, and theysaid, My son is without a home. They gave him their lodges, they gavehim their riches, and they gave him their daughters. Then Mahtoreebecame a chief, as his fathers had been. He struck the warriors ofall the nations, and he could have chosen wives from the Pawnees, theOmawhaws, and the Konzas; but he looked at the hunting grounds, and notat his village. He thought a horse was pleasanter than a Dahcotah girl.But he found a flower on the prairies, and he plucked it, and brought itinto his lodge. He forgets that he is the master of a single horse. Hegives them all to the stranger, for Mahtoree is not a thief; he willonly keep the flower he found on the prairie. Her feet are very tender.She cannot walk to the door of her father; she will stay, in the lodgeof a valiant warrior for ever."
When he had finished this extraordinary address, the Teton awaited tohave it translated, with the air of a suitor who entertained no verydisheartening doubts of his success. The trapper had not lost a syllableof the speech, and he now prepared himself to render it into English insuch a manner as should leave its principal idea even more obscure thanin the original. But as his reluctant lips were in the act of parting,Ellen lifted a finger, and with a keen glance from her quick eye, at thestill attentive Inez, she interrupted him.
"Spare your breath," she said, "all that a savage says is not to berepeated before a Christian lady."
Inez started, blushed, and bowed with an air of reserve, as she coldlythanked the old man for his intentions, and observed that she could nowwish to be alone.
"My daughters have no need of ears to understand what a great Dahcotahsays," returned the trapper, addressing himself to the expectingMahtoree. "The look he has given, and the signs he has made, are enough.They understand him; they wish to think of his words; for the childrenof great braves, such as their fathers are, do nothing with out muchthought."
With this explanation, so flattering to the energy of his eloquence, andso promising to his future hopes, the Teton was every way content.He made the customary ejaculation of assent, and prepared to retire.Saluting the females, in the cold but dignified manner of his people,he drew his robe about him, and moved from the spot where he had sto
od,with an air of ill-concealed triumph.
But there had been a stricken, though a motionless and unobservedauditor of the foregoing scene. Not a syllable had fallen from the lipsof the long and anxiously expected husband, that had not gone directlyto the heart of his unoffending wife. In this manner had he wooed herfrom the lodge of her father, and it was to listen to similar picturesof the renown and deeds of the greatest brave in her tribe, that she hadshut her ears to the tender tales of so many of the Sioux youths.
As the Teton turned to leave his lodge, in the manner just mentioned, hefound this unexpected and half-forgotten object before him. She stood,in the humble guise and with the shrinking air of an Indian girl,holding the pledge of their former love in her arms, directly in hispath. Starting, the chief regained the marble-like indifferenceof countenance, which distinguished in so remarkable a degree therestrained or more artificial expression of his features, and signed toher, with an air of authority to give place.
"Is not Tachechana the daughter of a chief?" demanded a subdued voice,in which pride struggled with anguish: "were not her brothers braves?"
"Go; the men are calling their partisan. He has no ears for a woman."
"No," replied the supplicant; "it is not the voice of Tachechana thatyou hear, but this boy, speaking with the tongue of his mother. Heis the son of a chief, and his words will go up to his father's ears.Listen to what he says. When was Mahtoree hungry and Tachechana hadnot food for him? When did he go on the path of the Pawnees and find itempty, that my mother did not weep? When did he come back with the marksof their blows, that she did not sing? What Sioux girl has given a bravea son like me? Look at me well, that you may know me. My eyes are theeagle's. I look at the sun and laugh. In a little time the Dahcotahswill follow me to the hunts and on the war-path. Why does my father turnhis eyes from the woman that gives me milk? Why has he so soon forgottenthe daughter of a mighty Sioux?"
There was a single instant, as the exulting father suffered his cold eyeto wander to the face of the laughing boy, that the stern nature of theTeton seemed touched. But shaking off the grateful sentiment, like onewho would gladly be rid of any painful, because reproachful, emotion,he laid his hand calmly on the arm of his wife, and led her directly infront of Inez. Pointing to the sweet countenance that was beaming on herown, with a look of tenderness and commiseration, he paused, to allowhis wife to contemplate a loveliness, which was quite as excellent toher ingenuous mind as it had proved dangerous to the character of herfaithless husband. When he thought abundant time had passed to make thecontrast sufficiently striking, he suddenly raised a small mirror, thatdangled at her breast, an ornament he had himself bestowed, in an hourof fondness, as a compliment to her beauty, and placed her own darkimage in its place. Wrapping his robe again about him, the Tetonmotioned to the trapper to follow, and stalked haughtily from the lodge,muttering, as he went--
"Mahtoree is very wise! What nation has so great a chief as theDahcotahs?"
Tachechana stood frozen into a statue of humility. Her mild and usuallyjoyous countenance worked, as if the struggle within was about todissolve the connection between her soul and that more material part,whose deformity was becoming so loathsome. Inez and Ellen were utterlyignorant of the nature of her interview with her husband, though thequick and sharpened wits of the latter led her to suspect a truth, towhich the entire innocence of the former furnished no clue. They wereboth, however, about to tender those sympathies, which are so naturalto, and so graceful in the sex, when their necessity seemed suddenly tocease. The convulsions in the features of the young Sioux disappeared,and her countenance became cold and rigid, like chiselled stone. Asingle expression of subdued anguish, which had made its impression ona brow that had rarely before contracted with sorrow, alone remained. Itwas never removed, in all the changes of seasons, fortunes, and years,which, in the vicissitudes of a suffering, female, savage life, she wassubsequently doomed to endure. As in the case of a premature blight, letthe plant quicken and revive as it may, the effects of that witheringtouch were always present.
Tachechana first stripped her person of every vestige of those rude buthighly prized ornaments, which the liberality of her husband had beenwont to lavish on her, and she tendered them meekly, and without amurmur, as an offering to the superiority of Inez. The braceletswere forced from her wrists, the complicated mazes of beads from herleggings, and the broad silver band from her brow. Then she paused,long and painfully. But it would seem, that the resolution, she hadonce adopted, was not to be conquered by the lingering emotions of anyaffection, however natural. The boy himself was next laid at the feetof her supposed rival, and well might the self-abased wife of the Tetonbelieve that the burden of her sacrifice was now full.
While Inez and Ellen stood regarding these several strange movementswith eyes of wonder, a low soft musical voice was heard saying in alanguage, that to them was unintelligible--
"A strange tongue will tell my boy the manner to become a man. He willhear sounds that are new, but he will learn them, and forget the voiceof his mother. It is the will of the Wahcondah, and a Sioux girl shouldnot complain. Speak to him softly, for his ears are very little; when heis big, your words may be louder. Let him not be a girl, for very sad isthe life of a woman. Teach him to keep his eyes on the men. Show himhow to strike them that do him wrong, and let him never forget to returnblow for blow. When he goes to hunt, the flower of the Pale-faces," sheconcluded, using in bitterness the metaphor which had been supplied bythe imagination of her truant husband, "will whisper softly in his earsthat the skin of his mother was red, and that she was once the Fawn ofthe Dahcotahs."
Tachechana pressed a kiss on the lips of her son, and withdrew to thefarther side of the lodge. Here she drew her light calico robe over herhead, and took her seat, in token of humility, on the naked earth. Allefforts, to attract her attention, were fruitless. She neither heardremonstrances, nor felt the touch. Once or twice her voice rose, in asort of wailing song, from beneath her quivering mantle, but it nevermounted into the wildness of savage music. In this manner she remainedunseen for hours, while events were occurring without the lodge, whichnot only materially changed the complexion of her own fortunes, but lefta lasting and deep impression on the future movements of the wanderingSioux.