"Nor had Quanah been unobservant and there were strange and violent pulsations through his veins also. It was the first time he had ever seen the arts of the lover attempted to be employed on Weckeah. Instantly his very soul was aflame with love for her. There was just one hot, ecstatic, overpowering flush of love, and then there came into his leaping heart the chilling, agonizing thought that this wooing might be by Weckeah's favor or encouragement. Then a very tempest of contending emotions raged in his breast.
"When the sun's rays began to slant to the east there came to Yellow Bear's tepee a rich old chief by the name of Eckitoacup, who had been, when a young man, the rival of Peta Nocona for the heart and hand of the beautiful 'White Comanche,' Cynthia Anne Parker. Eckitoacup and Yellow Bear sat down together, on buffalo robes under the brush wickiup in front of the tepee. They smoked their pipes leisurely, and talked a long time, not in whispers, but very slow and in low tones. When Quanah and Weckeah met that evening it was with feelings never experienced before by either of them.
"Weckeah was greatly agitated. She fluttered like a bird, and kneeling at Quanah's feet, she locked her arms around his knees, looked up in his face and begged him to save her.
"The lover with the flutes was Tannap, the only son of rich old Eckitoacup. Weckeah abhorred him, but his father had offered Yellow Bear ten ponies for her. Yellow Bear loved his daughter, and notwithstanding it was the tribal custom he was loath to sell her against her will. He had given Eckitoacup no answer for the present, and Weckeah implored Quanah to get ten ponies and take her himself.
"Quanah was filled with deepest pity for Weckeah, and alarmed at the prospect of losing her, for he owned but one pony, and Tannap's father owned a hundred. After telling Weckeah to be brave and note everything said and done in her sight and hearing, Quanah tore away from her, and gathering all of his young friends together, explained his situation to them. They loved him and hated Tannap, but calamities in war had made them all poor like himself. They separated to meet again in secret with others next morning. During the day nine ponies were tendered to him, which, with the one he owned made ten. These Quanah accepted on condition that others should be received in exchange for them whenever he could get them, which he was ambitious and hopeful enough to believe he could some day do.
"Driving these ponies, with the haste of an anxious lover, to Yellow Bear's tepee, Quanah there met old Eckitoacup, who greeted him with a taunting chuckle of exultation and a look of wicked revenge. His spies having informed him of the action of Quanah's friends, he had raised his bid to twenty ponies. This being an exceptionally liberal offer, Yellow Bear had promptly accepted it, and now the jealous and unforgiving old savage was exulting in his triumph over the poor but knightly rival of his arrogant and despised son, and gloating in his revenge upon the valiant and rising son of his own late successful and hated rival.
"Entering the tepee, Quanah found Weckeah prostrated at her mother's feet in deepest distress. In two sleeps Tannap would bring the twenty ponies and claim his prize. Weckeah was heartbroken and Quanah was desperate. He hurried back for another consultation with his friends, but not to ask for more ponies. It was to submit a new and startling proposition to them—to tell them of a new thought that had come to him—a new resolution that had taken possession of his very soul. Though he himself did not suspect it, the star of a new chief was about to rise above the horizon.
"The new scheme promising spoils and adventure, as well as triumph over a hated rival, Quanah's zealous young friends agreed to it with an enthusiasm which they could hardly avoid showing in their faces and actions.
"The unhappy lovers stole another brief twilight meeting in the shadows of Yellow Bear's tepee. Weckeah's quick eyes noted with increasing admiration and confidence that the past two days had marked a great change in Quanah. He was now no longer a boy. He seemed to have grown taller, was more serious and thoughtful, and spoke with an evident courage and consciousness of strength which gave her great hope and comfort. He told her that their only hope was in flight, and, as she knew, according to the inexorable law of the tribe, that meant certain death to him and at least the delivery of herself to Tannap, and possibly death to herself also, if they should be overtaken.
"Weckeah, instead of being deterred by the hazards of the attempt at elopement, was eager to go, for in that step she could see the possibility of a life of happiness, and escape from a fate which, in her detestation of Tannap, she regarded as even worse than death.