"Yes," she said, with emotion, "he is one of the bravest trappers on the Western prairies."
"Wah!" said the chief, in a still more amiable manner, "this renowned warrior must have a name respected through the prairies?"
The Spaniard suffered a martyrdom; held in awe by the eye of the Comanche, he did not know how to warn his mistress not to pronounce the name of her son.
"His name is well known," said the woman.
"Oh!" the old man cried eagerly, "all women are thus; with them all their sons are heroes: this one, although an excellent young man, is no better than others; certes, his name has never reached my brother."
"How does my brother know that?" said the Indian, with a sardonic smile.
"I suppose so," the old man replied; "or, at least, if by chance my brother has heard it pronounced, it must long ago have escaped his memory, and does not merit being recalled to it. If my brother will permit us, we will retire; the day has been fatiguing; the hour of repose is come."
"In an instant," said the Comanche quietly; and turning to the woman, "What is the name of the warrior of the palefaces?" he asked, in a peremptory tone.
But the old lady, placed upon her guard by the intervention of her servant, with whose prudence and devotion she was well acquainted, made no answer, conscious that she had committed a fault, and not knowing how to remedy it.
"Does not my mother hear me?" said the chief.