“She had nothing to live for. Husband, tribe—all was gone. What could she do but die?”
“And so he turned you out—a pooty woman like you, did he?”
For a moment, the black eyes of the Indian woman flashed upon his, as if to learn the meaning of the flattering words he had used, but reading sincerity and not unmeaning compliment in every feature of his face, she replied:
“He had seen a girl of snowy skin—and carried her away from her friends to fill his wigwam, and—”
“Hold your horses, thar. A white gal?”
“Fair as the flowers of spring, with hair like the silk of the maize in the autumn time—eyes like the blue summer sky—cheeks like the climbing rose of the prairie, and lips red as the sumac berries, and voice sweet as the music of spring-waters in the desert.”
“Whar is she now?”
By degrees, he learned the entire history of Esther’s capture—the wandering—the battle and the escape—all except the death of Osse ’o, for of that the woman was ignorant—then his fiery heart burst forth in no measured words. Fierce were the passions that shook his frame, and bitter would have been his revenge if the abductors had stood before him. But even in his wildest torrent of words, there came a controlling, soul-subduing influence. He murmured, “poor little Est,” and restraining himself, continued:
“I ought to know most of the chiefs at Spirit Lake. Did I ever meet this Indian?”
“He is known among the Dacotahs as the Black Eagle.”