He started with a cry of pain. His eyes burned.
"My father—I did not know that you were here. Heaven pity Waubeno now!"
"Waubeno, this is cruel!"
"Cruel? This country was once called the Red Man's Paradise. Cruel? The white man made the red man drunk with fire-water, and made him sign a false treaty, and then drove him away. Cruel? Think of the women the whites shot in the river for coming back to their own corn-fields starving to gather their own corn. Cruel? Why is the Red Man's Paradise no longer ours? Cruel? The Rock River flows for us no more; the spring brings the flowers to these prairies for us no more; the bluff rises in the summer sky, but the red man may no longer sit upon it. Cruel? Think how your people murdered my father. Is it more cruel for the Indian to do these things than for the white man to do them? You have emptied the Red Man's Paradise, and Waubeno has fulfilled the vow that he made to his father. The clouds are on fire. I would have saved you had I known, but you must perish with your people. I shall die with you. I am Waubeno. I am proud to be Waubeno. I am the avenger of my race.
"But, white brother, listen. I tried to prevent it. I remembered your teaching, and I tried to prevent it by our council-fires over the Mississippi. Main-Pogue tried to prevent it. I thought of the man who saved him in the war, and I wondered who he was, and tried to prevent it for his sake.
"Then said they to me: 'We go to avenge the loss of our country, the Red Man's Paradise. The grass is feathers. We go to burn. Waubeno, remember your father's death. You are the son of Alknomook!'
"White brother, I have come. I tried to prevent it, but this hand has obeyed the voice of my people. I have kindled the fires of the woe. The world is on fire. I tried to prevent it, but it has come."
"Waubeno, do you remember Lincoln?"
"Lincoln? The Indians killed his father's father. I have often thought of that. He said that he would do right by an Indian. I have thought of that. I love that man. I would die for such a man."
"Waubeno, who saved the life of Main-Pogue?"