“As the eagle of the mountains does the young dove of the valley.”
“And you brought her here? Here? Where is she, man?”
“Not like the children of the prairies can the pale squaw ride. She is feeble as the little pappoose, and her heart is sick as the snake-charmed bird.”
“What of it?” and a dark frown settled on the face of the speaker. “Why did you not bind her to a horse and bring her here at all hazards? My people would have tended her as—”
“The wolf the lamb.”
A strange speech that, to come from a nomadic, red warrior, and the eye of the white man quailed under the fiery glance fastened upon him.
“Well, yes, something like it,” he replied, trying to conceal his feelings under an unpleasant laugh. “But where is the girl?”
“In the lodges of the Sioux.”
“I must see her this very night.”
“Has the pale-face become a child? Is he a woman, that he forgets the thoughts of yesterday, and would, like the serpent, sting itself to the death.”