"Silence! my mother must not add a word. She insults at this moment a man who is most anxious to prove his truth to her: ingratitude is a white vice, gratitude a red virtue. My mother was ever kind to me; Red Wolf cannot count the occasions on which he owes his life to her. My mother's heart is ulcered by misfortune; solitude is an evil counsellor: my mother listens too much to the voices which whisper in her ear through the silence of night; she forgets the services she has rendered, only to remember the ingratitude she has sowed on her road. Red Wolf is devoted to her, he loves her; the She-wolf can place entire confidence in him, he is worthy of it."
"Dare I believe in these protestations? Can I put faith in these promises?" she muttered.
The chief continued passionately,—
"If the gratitude I have vowed to my mother is not enough, another and stronger tie attaches us, which must convince her of my sincerity."
"What is it?" she asked, looking fixedly at him.
"Hatred," he answered.
"That is true," she said, with a sinister burst of laughter. "You hate him too?"
"Yes; I hate him with all the strength of my soul: I hate him, because he has robbed me of the two things I held most to on earth,—the love of the woman I adored, and the power I coveted."
"But are you not a chief?" she said significantly.
"Yes!" he exclaimed proudly, "I am a chief, but my father was a sachem of the Kenhas; his son is brave, he is crafty, the scalps of numberless Palefaces dry before his lodge. Why then is Red Wolf only an inferior chief, instead of leading his men to battle as his father did?"