Guanaea would not be comforted.
"Who am I to scorn the generosity of Hawenneyu?" she cried. "Who am I to doubt the deeds of great warriors? I am only a woman, only a mother whose offspring left her, only a widow whose man went ahead of her into the land of shadows. Yet I cannot take this new Gahano to my breast. She is not to me as the child I suckled or the maiden whose waywardness I curbed. Nay, I can only mourn. I am an old woman. I have outlived my time! I will cover my face and sit by the ashes of the fire and weep!"
She threw her robe around her head and tottered away to the lodge she had shared with Donehogaweh, attended by the old women of her clan.
Ganeodiyo, senior Royaneh of the Senecas, stooped over and closed the eyes of his dead colleague, then rose.
"Tawannears has spent many moons upon a twisting trail," he said. "He and his white brothers have made us proud of them. They have done what no other warriors have done. There was a stain upon the women of their tribe, but they have wiped it off. It is well! Our eyes are dazzled by the splendor of their achievement. Our ears do not hear distinctly, for the cries of the enemies they vanquished. The face of the maiden they have recovered seems strange to us, but we shall grow accustomed to her again. Her feet will seek out the ways she knew of old. All will be as it was before. She will seem as though she had never departed.
"Na-ho!"
"Peter," I said, when we were alone together in the guest-chamber of the ganasote of the bachelors of the Wolf Clan, "have we done well to lie?"
He regarded me with twinkling eyes.
"Lie?"
"Yes, lie," I insisted. "Have we not lent our countenance to an essential falsehood?"