“Let the daughter of the pale-face bend her head so low that Waupee can whisper to her. The woods have ears, the flowers hearken, and the trees drink in words.”
“What mystery—what new fear is this? Tell me quickly, for my heart leaps wildly in terror of some danger that you know of.”
“The Black Eagle of the Sioux is flying swiftly upon the trail of the pale-face he would have for his mate!”
“Horror! Even now he may be concealed between me and my father’s camp. Thanks, thanks, good Waupee, and—”
“Hark!” and the Indian woman laid her ear close to the ground and listened for some time in silence. Then rising, she continued: “The earth is thundering beneath the hoofs of swift-running horses, but they are still afar. Let the daughter of the pale-face hasten to her people, and never again let her moccasin wander. The eye of the Black Eagle is keen, his wings swift, his talons sharp, and his heart knows neither pity or fear.”
“And you, Waupee?”
“The Great Spirit directs me. The poor Indian woman has risked her life to save you, for you were kind to her. But now—” she started suddenly as if serpent-stung, and without another word disappeared in the thick undergrowth.
Left to herself, the white girl paused but for a moment—a single one, as if to consider her nearest and most secure path to the camp, then darted off, with the swiftness of a frightened deer. Now and then she listened intently, while pausing to gather breath, and once, in passing, bent over the swift-running water that washed the green grasses and tiny flowers at her feet, attracted, even in her flight, by some unwonted object.
Was it the eyes of a basilisk that so enchained her? What was the form, but half hid by the drooping bushes, that robbed her cheeks of their healthy red and brought a cry of anguish to her quivering lips. Do demons lave their black limbs in the limpid waters of the mountain streams, or forms Plutonian sport where the salmon should alone flash its silver sides?
The waters parted with a turbulent dash, and a dark form arose, dripping like a water-god, before her. It was Black Eagle, of the Sioux.