“The warrior of Wahneenah judged well when he chose this cavern for a possible home.”
“It is needed, then? As the Black Partridge foretold.”
“It is needed. There is no other.”
The words were quietly spoken; but there was heart-break in each one.
“Our village? The home of all our people? Is it not still safe and a refuge for all unfortunates among the nations?”
“Where Muck-otey-pokee laughed by the waterside, there is now a heap of ruins. The river that danced in the sunlight is red with the blood of the slain and of all the lodges wherein we dwelt, not one remains!”
“My brother! Surely, much brooding has made you distraught. Such cannot be. There were warriors, hundreds of them in the settlement and before their arrows the pale-faces fall like trees before the woodman’s axe.”
“If the arrows are not in the quiver, can the warrior shoot? Against the man who steals up in the rear, can one be prepared? It was a short, sharp battle. The innocent fell with the guilty, and the earth receives them all. Where Muck-otey-pokee stood is a blackened waste. Those who survived have fled, to seek new homes wherever they may find them. In her pathways the dead faces stare into the sky as even yet, among the sandhills, lie and stare the unburied dead of the Fort Dearborn massacre. It is fate. It is nature. It is the game of life. To-day one wins, to-morrow another. In the end, for all—is death.”
For a while after that, Wahneenah neither moved nor spoke, and the Black Partridge lapsed into another profound silence. Finally, the woman rose, and going to the fireplace, took handsful of its ashes and strewed them upon her head and face. Then she drew her blanket over her features, and thus, hiding her sorrow even from the witness of the night, she sat down again in her place and became at once as rigid and impassive as her brother.
Thus the morning found them. Despite their habit of wandering from point to point, the village of Muck-otey-pokee was the rallying-place of the Pottawatomies, their home, the ancient burial-ground of their dead. Its destruction meant, to the far-seeing Black Partridge, also the destruction of his tribe. Therefore, as he had said, his spirit was broken within him.