With an expression of awe upon his features, the chief listened to the words of the old Indian.
“Let my father forgive and forget,” Ke-ne-ha-ha said, slowly.
“The Great Medicine will tell the Shawnee chief the fate of the Red Arrow. She wandered from the wigwams of her people because she had fallen in love with a pale-face—a hunter, whose cabin was by the Ohio and Muskingum. She left home, kindred, all, for the sake of the long-rifle. She became his squaw. Does the Great Medicine speak truth?”
“Yes,” Ke-ne-ha-ha answered, slowly and reluctantly.
“It is good. Does the chief see that it is useless to deceive the Great Medicine, who can look into men’s hearts and read what is written there?”
“My father is wise.”
“The Great Spirit has made him so,” answered the old Indian, solemnly.
“The Great Medicine knows the fate of the Red Arrow?” Ke-ne-ha-ha asked.
“Yes; the Shawnees found her in the lodge of the pale-face. They asked her to return to her people. She refused, for she loved the white hunter. Then the red chiefs went away, but when the sky grew dark, covered by Manitou’s mantle, again the Shawnee warriors stood by the lodge of the pale-face who had stolen from her home the singing-bird of the Shawnees. The brands were in their hands, the keen-edged scalping-knives in their belts. They gave to the fire the lodge of the pale face, and while the flames roared and crackled, they shot the Red Arrow dead in their midst.”
“The Shawnee woman who forsakes her tribe for a pale-face stranger deserves to die,” said the chief, sternly.