The lightning of her eyes checked further expostulation.
“Let Mahaska decide,” he answered. “It shall be as she says.”
He turned from the subject, but his words rankled in her mind. She began to believe, judging of his nature by her own instincts, that he was jealous of her power, and could not bear the idea of her winning new glory on the war-path.
“He shall be swept aside like chaff,” she thought. “Gi-en-gwa-tah, beware! The clouds grow black—the earth resounds under your feet! Twice you have disputed Mahaska—attempt it once more, and your little glory shall go out like a feeble flame that my deeds will extinguish.”
The chief left her alone, and she remained bending ever her babe, watching with solicitude his slightest movement, yet all the while brooding over the dark thoughts forming in her mind.
CHAPTER IX.
ON THE WAR-PATH.
It was a beautiful spring day; the sun lay golden and warm on Seneca lake; the forest that draped its picturesque shore wore its freshest and most vivid green; the light breeze that rippled the waters was fragrant with the odor of the wild flowers and luxuriant grasses across which it had swept in its path through the blooming wilderness. The Indian village was in an unusual state of bustle and excitement; the women and children were watching a party of warriors who performed a war-dance about the smoldering council-fire; Indians were hurrying to and fro, and every thing betokened the approach of some important departure.
Before the entrance of queen Mahaska’s palace stood a horse richly caparisoned, and her body-guard, now swelled to two hundred in number, had reined up their horses upon the bank of the lake. The Senecas, together with one or two other tribes belonging to the Six Nations, were going out upon the war-path, and Mahaska had signified her intention of accompanying them. Gi-en-gwa-tah had by no means yielded the point in his own mind, but had been defiantly put to silence, though his opposition had never arisen from the unworthy feeling to which Mahaska ascribed it. Her wild ambition and restless spirit yearned for new triumphs, for she had exhausted all the ordinary successes of her life, and she determined to win for herself new glory, by bearing a prominent part in the wars in which the Indians were so frequently engaged.
The hour set for their starting had arrived; a portion of the band had gone on in advance; the rest only waited the appearance of her guard to commence their journey. She was bidding farewell to her child. In that moment of departure upon her bloody errand, the one human feeling which made her soul akin to her sex had its influence.
The winter had been spent in no luxurious idleness which would unfit her for the arduous undertaking now before her.