As they left the circle, Reginald’s eye encountered that of Mahéga, fixed with a scowling expression on himself and his fair companion; but he passed on without noticing the sullen and haughty chief, being resolved not to involve himself in any quarrel in her presence. They walked slowly towards the lodge of Tamenund, and it must be confessed that they did not take exactly the shortest path to it, Reginald leading the way, and Prairie–bird following his occasional deviations with marvellous acquiescence.
The young man turned the conversation on the character of Paul Müller, knowing it to be a subject agreeable to Prairie–bird, and well calculated to give him an opportunity of listening to that voice which was already music to his ear; nor was he disappointed, for she spoke of him with all the warmth of the most affectionate regard; and the expression of her feelings imparted such eloquence to her tongue and to her beaming eyes, that Reginald looked and listened in enraptured silence. As they drew near her tent, she suddenly checked herself, and looking up in his face with an archness that was irresistible, said, “Pray pardon me, I have been talking all this time, when I ought to have been listening to you, who are so much wiser than myself.”
“Say not so,” replied Reginald, with an earnestness that he attempted not to conceal: “say not so, I only regret that we have already reached your tent, for I should never be weary of listening to your voice.”
Prairie–bird replied with that ingenuous simplicity peculiar to her:
“I am glad to hear you say so, for I know you speak the truth, and it makes me very happy to give you pleasure. Now I must go into my tent.”
So saying she held out her hand to him, and nothing but the presence of several Indians loitering near prevented his obeying the impulse which prompted him to press it to his lips. Checking it by an effort of prudence, he withdrew into the lodge of Tamenund, and mused on the qualities of this extraordinary child of the wilderness,—her beauty, her grace, her dignity, and, above all, that guileless simplicity that distinguished her beyond all that he had ever seen; in short, he mused so long on the subject that we will leave him to his meditations, as we fear it must be confessed that he was almost, if not quite, “in love;” and the reflections of parties so circumstanced, are rarely interesting to others.
What were the feelings of Prairie–bird when she once more found herself alone in her tent, and vainly endeavoured to still the unwonted tumult in her heart? Her thoughts, in spite of herself, would dwell on the companion who had escorted her from the Osage lodge: his words still rung in her ears; his image was before her eyes; she felt ashamed that one, almost a stranger, should thus absorb all her faculties; and was the more ashamed, from being conscious that she did not wish it were otherwise; her heart told her that it would not exchange its present state of tumult and subjection for its former condition of quiet and peace!
Lest the reader should be inclined to judge her as harshly as she judged herself, we will beg him to remember the circumstances and history of this singular girl. Brought up among a roving tribe of Indians, she had fortunately fallen into the hands of a family remarkable for the highest virtues exhibited by that people: the missionary, Paul Müller, had cultivated her understanding with the most affectionate and zealous care; and he was, with the exception of an occasional trader visiting the tribe, almost the only man of her own race whom she had seen; and though entertaining towards Tamenund the gratitude which his kindness to her deserved, and towards War–Eagle and Wingenund the affectionate regard of a sister, both the knowledge imparted by the missionary, and her own instinctive feeling, had taught her to consider herself among them as a separate and isolated being. These feelings she had of course nourished in secret, but they had not altogether escaped the penetration of Wingenund, who, it may be remembered, had told Reginald on their first meeting that the antelope was as likely to pair with the elk, as was his sister to choose a mate among the chiefs of the Osage or the Lenapé.
On the return of the two Delawares from their excursion to the Muskingum, Wingenund had related to Prairie–bird the heroic gallantry with which the young white chief had plunged into the river to save War–Eagle’s life: he had painted, with untutored but impassioned eloquence, the courage, the gentleness, the generosity, of his new friend. Prairie–bird’s own imagination had filled up the picture, and the unseen preserver of her Indian brother was therein associated with all the highest qualities that adorned the heroes of such tales as she had read or heard recounted by the missionary.