"Wanska is very happy now," she replied. "Her father is a good hunter. He has gone to-day to carry ducks and pigeons to the Fort. The promises of the Deer-killer are like the branch that breaks in my hand. Wenona's face is pale, and her eyes are red like blood from weeping. The Deer-killer promised to make her his wife, and now that he has broken his word to her, he tells Wanska that he will never take another wife, but she cannot trust him."
"Wanska was well named the Merry Heart," the warrior replied; "she laughs at Wenona and calls her a fool, and then she wishes me to marry her. Who would listen to a woman's words? And yet the voice of the Merry Heart is sweeter than a bird's—her laugh makes my spirit glad. When she sits in my lodge and sings to the children who will call me father, I shall be happy. Many women have loved the Deer-killer, but never has he cared to sit beside one, till he heard the voice of Wanska as she sang in the scalp-dance, and saw her bear the scalp of her enemy upon her shoulders."
Wanska's face was pale while she listened to him. She approached him, and laid her small hand upon his arm—"I have heard your words, and my heart says they are good. I have loved you ever since we were children. When I was told that you were always by the side of Wenona, the laugh of my companions was hateful to me—the light of the sun was darkness to my eyes. When Wenona returned to her village with her parents, I said in the presence of the Great Spirit that she should not live after you had made her your wife. But her looks told me that there was sadness in her heart, and then I knew you could not love her.
"You promise me you will never bring another wife to your wigwam. Deer-killer! the wife of the white man is happy, for her husband loves her alone. The children of the second wife do not mock the woman who is no longer beloved, nor strike her children before her eyes. When I am your wife I shall be happy while you love me; there will be no night in my teepee while I know your heart is faithful and true; but should you break your word to me, and bring to your lodge another wife, you shall see me no more, and the voice whose sound is music to your ears you will never hear again."
Promises come as readily to the lips of an Indian lover as trustfulness does to the heart of the woman who listens to them; and the Deer-killer was believed.
Wanska had been often at the Fort, and she had seen the difference between the life of a white and that of an Indian woman. She had thought that the Great Spirit was unmindful of the cares of his children.
And who would have thought that care was known to Wanska, with her merry laugh, and her never-ceasing jokes, whether played upon her young companions, or on the old medicine man who kept everybody but her in awe of him.
She seemed to be everywhere too, at the same time. Her canoe dances lightly over the St. Peter's, and her companions try in vain to keep up with her. Soon her clear voice is heard as she sings, keeping time with the strokes of the axe she uses so skilfully. A peal of laughter rouses the old woman, her mother, who goes to bring the truant home, but she is gone, and when she returns, in time to see the red sun fade away in the bright horizon, she tells her mother that she went out with two or three other girls, to assist the hunters in bringing in the deer they had killed. And her mother for once does not scold, for she remembers how she used to love to wander on the prairies, when her heart was as light and happy as her child's.
When Wanska was told that the Deer-killer loved Wenona, no one heard her sighs, and for tears, she was too proud to shed any. Wenona's fault had met with ridicule and contempt; there was neither sympathy nor excuse found for her. And now that the Deer-killer had slighted Wenona, and had promised to love her alone, there was nothing wanting to her happiness.
Bright tears of joy fell from her eyes when her lover said there was a spell over him when he loved Wenona, but now his spirit was free; that he would ever love her truly, and that when her parents returned he would bring rich presents and lay them at the door of the lodge.