It was not long before the chief’s daughter, Inewatah, fell in love with him, and as her illustrious father, Tekineh, had lost a son in the war, In-nan-ga-eh was given the choice of becoming the chief’s adopted son or his son-in-law. He naturally chose the latter, as the wife-to-be was both beautiful and winning.
The war resulted in defeat for the Cherokees, although the old chief escaped to fastnesses further south with his beautiful daughter and alien son-in-law. All went well for a year and a half after the peace when In-nan-ga-eh, began to feel restless and listless for his northern mountains, the playground of his youth. He wanted to go on a visit, and asked the chief’s permission, giving as his word of honor, his love for the chieftain’s daughter, that he would properly return.
The Cherokee bride was as heartbroken as Liddenah; she had first asked that she might accompany him on the trip, which was refused, but she accepted the inevitable stoically outwardly, but with secret aching bosom.
In-nan-ga-eh was glad to get away; being loved too much was tiresome; life was too enervating in the warm sunshine on Soco Creek; he liked the camp and the hunting lodge; love making, too much of it, palled on him. He wanted to be let alone.
Accompanied by a bodyguard of selected Cherokees, he hurriedly made his way to the North. One morning to the surprise and delight of all, he appeared at his tribal village by the Ohe-yu, as gay and debonair as ever. As he entered the town almost the first person he saw was Liddenah. She looked very beautiful, and he could see at one glance how she loved him, yet perversely he barely nodded as he passed.
When he was re-united with his parents, who treated him as one risen from the dead, his sisters began telling him about the news of the settlement, of his many friends, of Liddenah. Her grief had been very severe, it shocked her mother that she should behave so like a European and show her feelings to such an extent. Then the report had come that he had been put to death by slow torture. “Better that,” Liddenah had said openly in the market place, “than to remain the captive of barbarians.”
Once it was taken for granted that he was dead, Liddenah began to receive the attentions of young braves, as they came back from the South laden with scalps and other decorations of their victorious campaign against the Cherokees. Liddenah gave all to understand that her heart was dead; she was polite and tolerant, but, like the eagle, she could love only once.
There was one young brave named Quinnemongh who pressed his suit more assiduously than the rest, and aided by Liddenah’s mother, was successful. The pair were quietly married about a year after In-nan-ga-eh’s capture, or several months before he started for the North, leaving his Cherokee bride at her father’s home on the Soco.
Quinnemongh was not such a showy individual as In-nan-ga-eh, but his bravery was unquestioned, his reliability and honor above reproach. He made Liddenah a very good husband. In turn she seemed to be happy with him, and gradually overcoming her terrible sorrow.
When In-nan-ga-eh had passed Liddenah on entering the village, he had barely noticed her because he supposed that he could have her any time for the asking. When he learned that she was the wife of another, he suddenly realized that he wanted her very badly, that she was the cause of his journey Northward. The old passion surged through his veins; it was what the bark-peelers call “the second run of the sap.”