The Ah-wah-nee-chees numbered more men than women; and from time to time bands of young braves, in the flush of primal strength, swept through the country with the ungoverned madness of a bullock herd, carrying away women from the villages they raided.
When the Mo-no men came to Ah-wah-nee to the feasts of the manzanita berry and of acorns and of venison, they brought their women with them. These mountain women were pleasing to the eye, erect as the silver fir that grows upon the mountain side, clean-limbed and free of motion as the panther; and more than all others were they coveted by the Ah-wah-nee-chees, who chafed under a friendship that thwarted desire.
And the story is told that at a certain feast of venison Wa-hu-lah, a Mo-no maiden, stirred the fancy of a young warrior of Ten-ie-ya’s band. Spring, the love season of Nature’s children, had passed the young warrior many times since he came to manhood, and he had not heeded her soft whisper. But never before had he seen Wa-hu-lah, the Mo-no maiden.
Now, through all the time of feasting, he watched eagerly for the love sign in Wa-hu-lah’s eyes; but he saw there only the depth and the darkness and the mystery of a pool hidden in the heart of a forest of pines, which no ray of sunlight pierces.
Love was dead in the heart of Wa-hu-lah. On her face could still be seen dim traces of mourning, lines of pitch and ashes not yet worn away, though there had been two seasons of grass and flowers since her voice rose in the funeral wail beside the pyre of her dead lover. She had not died as the dove does when her mate is gone; but she could not forget, and as she sat among the feasters sorrow throbbed in her heart like the ceaseless whirr of a grouse’s wing. The Ah-wah-nee-chee warrior sought in vain for an answering sign, and when the days of feasting were over Wa-hu-lah went away with her father.
Day and night the Ah-wah-nee-chee thought of his love; the face of Wa-hu-lah was ever before his eyes; and he knew that he must follow her and bring her to his lodge. But already the snow-clouds resting on the peaks of Sky Mountains were scattering their burden, soft and white as the down of Tis-sa-ack’s wings. Valley and forest lay lifeless under a thick blanket, and the trails were choked with snow.
The Ah-wah-nee-chee’s love smouldered through the winter months, with naught but the memory of Wa-hu-lah’s sad, unanswering eyes to feed upon. Far away, in the wig-wam of her father, Wa-hu-lah nursed her grief.
At last spring came, with soft, straying winds that breathe of new life. Birds sang in the trees as they built their nests; squirrels chattered softly among the rocks; Too-loo-lo-we-ack, the Rushing Water, babbled of the joys of summer; and Yo-wi-we dashed from the heights to carry the message of love brought by the sun from the southland to all the valley.
While yet the trails were heavy with melting snows, the Ah-wah-nee-chee warrior stole away from his lodge one night and set his face toward the rising sun, yonder to the eastward of To-co-yah; and ere the day god had wrapped himself in his flaming cloud blanket in the far-off West, the Ah-wah-nee-chee was smoking the peace pipe with the chief of the Mo-nos, Wa-hu-lah’s father.