About noon a loud shout was heard, and Gray Eagle, looking from the top of the hill, saw a great commotion in the Sioux camp.
The cause was soon apparent. They had taken a prisoner.
And Gray Eagle did not need a spy-glass to show him that the prisoner was his daughter.
Red Pine did not care, now, for the lives that had been lost. He forgot for the moment his habitual stoicism, and danced for joy.
"Waugh! the Blackfoot squaw has bad luck!" he said. "The warriors of Red Pine have killed the Pawnees, and there is now no help for her. The Queen of the Blackfeet shall yet sit in the lodge of a Sioux chief."
"Never!" exclaimed Snowdrop. "My people are near, and they will sweep the Sioux from the earth."
"Let the Blackfoot maiden look up, and she will see that her father and his warriors are prisoners. There is but one path up there, and Red Pine will stay here until the last of the Blackfeet are starved to death, if Snowdrop does not consent to be his squaw!"
Tradition had handed down to her the legend of the last of the Illinii—she knew how the remnant of a once powerful tribe had sought a refuge from their relentless foes, in just such a place as this. She knew that when the enemy had at last gained the top of the rock, they found only the dead bodies of that ill-fated band.
Was it possible that the tragic scene was to be re-enacted here, and this hill become another Starved Rock?
She knew the fallacy of trying to oppose Red Pine in his ambition, so, like a sensible girl, she closed her mouth and walked away to the lodge assigned her.