"It is certain that he is handsome," whispered Otshata; "but is not his condition dreadful? Let us hasten and report it to our father."
"No," answered Aeana, decisively. "That is," she added, "we will return to our father, and that quickly, but we must either take this young man with us or leave him to perish. See you not that the river is flowing backward and that its waters are rising? If we leave him he must die, since he is in no condition to care for himself. How we may get him into the canoe I know not, but if that can be done we will carry him to Kaweras, our father."
The elder though more timid sister attempted a further expostulation, but without heeding her Aeana brought the canoe close to where the wounded youth still sat, indifferent alike to his fate and his surroundings, idly repeating the strange words that had fixed themselves in his bewildered brain. Aeana spoke to him, but he failed to comprehend what she said. She laid a gentle hand on his arm and endeavored to persuade him into the canoe, but he sat passively motionless.
Finally in despair the girl uttered one of the strange words that he so constantly repeated. "Massasoit," she said, and the youth looked at her, seeming for the first time to recognize her presence. A faint smile flickered across his blood-smeared features, and he made a movement towards her. In another moment, aided by her supple strength, he had gained the interior of the canoe, and lay weakly with closed eyes while the two girls pulled it out from among the reeds. Then seizing their paddles, they urged the light craft swiftly down the river towards their father's lodge.
Thus did the daughters of Kaweras, who had been sent to fetch a bundle of stout reeds that might serve as shafts for bird arrows, return without them, but bringing a wounded and unconscious youth in their place.
Although the old arrow-maker saw at a glance that the young warrior was not of the Maqua, nor even of the Iroquois people, his ideas of hospitality did not permit him to ask questions nor hesitate a moment before attending to the stranger's needs. It required the united strength of father and daughters to transfer Nahma from canoe to lodge, and when he was finally laid in the latter on a hastily improvised couch of boughs and skins, he was once more to all appearance dead.
CHAPTER VI IN THE LODGE OF THE ARROW-MAKER
The lodge of Kaweras, occupied only by him and his two daughters, stood by itself in a grassy glade shaded by elms on the western bank of the lordly Shatemuc. Close at hand flowed a spring of crystal water, while at no great distances were abundant materials for the prosecution of the old arrow-maker's trade. Nearby hills furnished him with flints and slate, agate and milk-white quartz; stout reeds and tough, straight-grained woods were to be had for the taking. Deer of the forest yielded him their strong back-sinews for binding arrow-head to shaft, and myriads of sea-fowl flying up or down the broad river gave him of their feathers. In his younger days Kaweras had been a noted warrior. Now he was the most expert arrow-maker of the region in which he dwelt. He was also a mystic, a prophet, and one well versed in the science of healing by means of herbs, roots, bark, and leaves.