“How is the Forest Rose to-night?” the chief asked, glancing toward a couch of skins and blankets on the opposite side of the lodge, on which he could see the form of a female reclining by the dim fire-light that illuminated the wigwam. She lay silent and motionless as though life had fled.
“The Forest Rose is very ill,” replied the old Indian, mournfully, “and she will die! Yon-da-do, the great medicine man, has said so. He has made use of all his ceremonies and mystic arts, but he can not save her. The lovely Forest Rose must die!”
As he ceased speaking he arose, and lighting a small pitch-pine torch in the fire, went over to the side of the couch. Throwing aside the covering from her face, he allowed the light to fall upon it for a moment. It was a beautiful face, darkly lovely—the face of an Indian maiden in the first flush of womanhood. She was rather light for one of her dusky race, with heavy masses of raven-black hair falling in lovely confusion about her statuesque face, in whose contour the hard angularity of the Indian type was not discernible, and down upon her perfectly-shaped neck, and softly-rounded shoulders. Her long, heavy lashes lay upon her cheeks, which were very pale, hiding her dark lustrous eyes, which, when lighted up with health, added not a little to her almost bewildering beauty. But now the lovely Forest Rose lay like one dead.
“Let my father look up and be happy!” said the chief. “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah has seen a medicine-woman to-day, that can surely bring back life to the Forest Rose. The medicine-woman that I saw was a mighty conjuror. The Great Spirit has given her greater power than that of Yon-da-do!”
“Who is this mighty magician?”
“She is a pale-face maiden, as beautiful as the Forest Rose,” replied the chief.
“Would she come?” asked the old Indian, while a hopeful light flashed out of his aged eyes, undimmed by the flight of time. “Would a white medicine-woman come to give life back to an Indian girl!”
“She would not come willingly,” said the crafty chief, “but she must be brought! If she is not, the Forest Rose will die!”
“Then she must be brought!” said the old Indian, decisively. “I will call a council of braves in the morning, and a party shall be sent to bring the white magician. The Forest Rose must be saved!”
The aged Indian was the real chief of the tribe—that is, although he was too old to go on the war-path, leaving the active fighting to the younger and more warlike Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, he was the real moving spirit, always planning and ordering all important movements of the band. The languishing Forest Rose was his daughter.