"You have told the council how the battle was fought and who fell; you
have shown the spent quiver and the scalps, but you have not spoken of
your prisoner. The Great Spirit keeps nothing hid from his priests, of
whom Chenos is one. He has told me you have a prisoner, one with
tender feet and a trembling heart."
"Let any one say the Head Buffalo ever lied," replied the warrior. "He
never spoke but truth. He has a prisoner, a woman taken from the
strange camp, a daughter of the sun, a maiden from the happy islands
which no Shawano has ever seen, and she shall live with me, and become
the mother of my children."
"Where is she?" asked the head chief.
"She sits on the bank of the river at the bend where we dug up the
bones of the great beast, beneath the tree which the Master of Breath
shivered with his lightnings. I placed her there because the spot is
sacred, and none dare disturb her. I will go and fetch her to the
council fire, but let no one touch her or show anger, for she is
fearful as a young deer, and weeps like a child for its mother."
Soon he returned, and brought with him a woman. She shook like a reed
in the winter's wind, and many tears ran down her cheeks. The men sat
as though their tongues were frozen. Was she beautiful? Go forth to
the forest when it is clothed with the flowers of spring, look at the
tall maize when it waves in the wind, and ask if they are beautiful.
Her skin was white as the snow which falls upon the mountains beyond
our lands, save upon her cheeks, where it was red,--not such red as
the Indian paints when he goes to war, but such as the Master of Life
gives to the flower which grows among thorns. Her eyes shone like the
star which never moves. Her step was like that of the deer when it is
a little scared.