He looked disappointed, and she added, in her softest voice:
“But things which Mahaska would not declare at the council, surely she may whisper to her chief; they did not forbid her to do that. Mahaska knows that she can trust her brave.”
Gi-en-gwa-tah drew himself proudly up:
“The chief has never broken his word,” he said; “that which Mahaska tells him in the secrecy of her lodge shall never be whispered to the wind outside.”
“It is well,” she returned; “better even than his courage Mahaska loves the chiefs honor; she will trust him.”
“She may do so; he will be silent as the grass over the graves of our fathers—let Gi-en-gwa-tah hear the queens visions.”
He liked to call her by that title; his nature was too noble for him to feel the slightest jealousy of her power, and even the thought which had of late crossed him of his own secondary position brought no bitterness toward her; it only made him burn to distinguish himself by greater deeds, that he might win for himself honors which should prove him worthy to have been selected as her husband.
After a few moments’ pause she said, in the deep, impressive tone in which she was wont to relate her visions:
“Mahaska was not alone until almost dawn; all night the voices of her spirits filled the lodge like the sighing of the south wind; many things they told her. They are pleased that the Fox is gone. Mahaska saw him, too, at a distance; he could not approach her for her presence is sacred, but he stood far off, moaning and wringing his hands, full of suffering and misery for the trouble he tried to bring upon her. He took with him no hunting-knife, no tomahawk, into the land of shadow; he suffers from hunger and cold, and there are none to help him. All the spirits say to him: ‘thus shall it befall those who plot against the queen whom Mineto has given to the Senecas.’”
Gi-en-gwa-tah shuddered at the picture she drew. Mahaska noted the effect of every word.