“Ay!” I answered, “but I tell you, should you try it, you would see
We have many a hundred women that in need were stout as she.
“On the mountains of Virginia, in Kentucky’s bloody ground,
In the forests of Ohio, scores of such are to be found—
“Women tender, trusting, tearful; yet if peril forced among,
They can fight as stern and fiercely as a pantheress for her young.”
Quoth the chieftain, “If so many like that woman you can find,
You should send them forth to battle, while your men remained behind.
“I have met your braves in combat when the skies were red with fire,
And the sabres of your horsemen flashed the lightning of their ire—