The Indian stood quite still while she was speaking, with a look of mingled doubt and awe on his face. At last he said in his harsh voice:
“Ugh! Let Ku-nan-gu-no-nah see what Sun-Hair can do. She is not a great medicine-woman. There is but one who has a mighty power from the Great Spirit, and that is Yon-da-do, the great conjuror of my tribe. Sun-Hair can’t get away. The chief will kill her if she tries. Let Ku-nan-gu-no-nah see!”
“Let the chief look and be convinced!”
Vinnie attached the slippers to the conductors leading from the battery, and set them side by side on the cabin floor.
Then, taking up her position behind the table, she commenced to operate the machine slowly at first, then faster, until the slippers began to skip about, dancing a sort of shuffle, which caused the Indian’s face to take on a look of still greater wonder.
“See,” she said, turning the little crank faster, causing the magic slippers to jump higher and oftener than before. “Do you longer doubt my power? You, Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, strong brave though you are, can not hold those dancing moccasins when I command them to move!”
The chief’s face lighted up in an instant with a look of scorn and contempt. No one had ever doubted his strength before. Surely he could hold those skipping bits of leather.
“Look!” he said. “Let Sun-Hair see the chief hold them so fast they can not tremble.”
He stooped down and raised them from the floor, holding one in each hand.
He clutched them firmly, and then went on: