"And why?"
"Clo-ke-ta's master"—the intonation of this epithet was scornful, and, as it seemed to me, full of regret, which she disdained suppressing—"has his braves gathered around."
"Is Clo-ke-ta, then, married?"
I could not help the passionate inflexion with which I framed this whisper. For the moment, I had not only forgotten the wife who had so recently joined me, but the very information the Cheyenne woman had just given me.
"The daughter of Par-a-wau could not go childless to the grave."
"Certainly not," I answered mechanically.
My memory had bridged the intervening years between the present and the time when the parent of Clo-ke-ta, as well as Old Spotted Tail, had done me the honor of wishing to enroll me as a Cheyenne chief.
"Will my brother do as Clo-ke-ta has bidden him?"
The impatience of the request was more like her father's manner and voice than anything she had yet said. It recalled me to the life of my present.