“Oh, the friend of my father is too good,” replied Wawandah, with a manner changed, from despair to life and hope, which, although unheeded by the husband, was not lost upon his beautiful wife. “Wawandah is thankful. He will sleep in the wigwam of the White Bear, and gain from his goodness new courage to his heart, and strength to his arm, and skill to his eye. He will go forth to the chase as before. He will forget the love of the woman he cannot have, in the friendship of his sister—in the child the Good Spirit allowed him to save for the friend of his father. Wawandah will be happy, and the White Bear will make him so.”
The Sunflower rose from the spot where she was seated at her work, and moving in all her gracefulness and dignity of carriage to her husband’s side, leaned over him, and thanked him for his goodness in permitting her to aid in soothing him to whom she owed her life and happiness with him.
“Wawandah,” said the husband of the Sunflower, “you may go; I wished to give ease to your heart—not to pine away like a love-sick woman. You live here. I am not quite old enough to be your father, for five-and-twenty years have passed over your head, but I shall be every thing else to you; nor is Sunflower old enough to be your mother, but she shall be your sister, and her laughing eye shall make you glad. Go, then, part with your wigwam, and let it be known throughout the tribe the White Bear adopts you as his son.”
From that hour Wawandah became a changed man. He lived in the wigwam of the White Bear. The beautiful Sunflower was ever before his eyes. Her presence inspired, her soft eye turned in gratitude upon him who had preserved her life, infused animation, if not hope, into his being. He had no other thought, no other desire than to be loved by the Sunflower as by a sister, to be near her, to listen to her sweet voice, to mark the expression of her beautiful eyes, to follow the graceful movements of her tall form—all this he enjoyed, and he was happy. Sustained by her approval, once more the buffalo and the elk fell beneath his unerring rifle, and his honors graced the interior of the tent which the Sunflower decorated with her own hands. Again he was foremost in the race, and left his competitors behind when darting into the swollen stream they buffeted against the strong current that essayed to check their upward progress. In the wrestling-ring no one could equal his dexterity and strength; and where once his foot touched the ball, no opponent could bear from him his prize until it had reached the desired goal. The women were often spectators of these sports, and approved the manliness and activity of the handsome and modest-looking Wawandah, but none more than his newly found sister, the peerless Sunflower of the White Bear.
“Strange!” she would muse to herself, as she saw him amidst the loud plaudits of the aged and the young of the warriors, of the matron and of the maid bear off every prize for which he contended—“strange, that before he came to dwell within our wigwam, he was as a child, and even now is a strong man, proud in his own power. It was disappointed love made him weak and uncertain of aim in the chase, he said to the White Bear. What, then, has made him strong, for no love warms him yet but the love of his sister.” The Sunflower sighed; she thought of the eloquent looks he had often cast upon herself, and she endeavored to give a new direction to her thoughts.
Often would the White Bear and Wawandah set out on a hunting excursion of a couple of days, and return so laden with the meat of the buffalo and the deer, that the horses they took with them for the purpose, could with difficulty walk under the heavy burdens. Then would the children, seeing them coming from a distance, clap their hands, and utter shouts of rejoicing, until the whole encampment attracted by their cries, would turn out and gathered together in small groups, await the arrival of the hunters, to whom the word and hand of greeting were cordially given. The Sunflower would watch all this from a distance, and in silence; and her heart would become glad, for well she knew where the choicest of the game killed by Wawandah’s hand would be laid—at his sister’s feet with a look of such touching eloquence of prayer for its acceptance that the very anticipation took from her loneliness in absence; and she was always right, for never on one occasion did Wawandah fail, and when he had given of the best to the wife of the White Bear, his soft and beautiful eyes rendered more lustrous by the deep hectic overspreading his brown cheek, would thank him with such expression of silent eloquence, that her own heart would invariably flutter, and her own cheek flush with as deep a crimson. And then, happy and contented and rewarded for all his toil, Wawandah would bear the remainder of his game to the tents of the chiefs, and distribute among the grateful wives of these the remainder of the proceeds of his unequalled skill. No one was now a greater favorite throughout the Saukie camp than the late despised Wawandah, the son of the Black Vulture.
Once in the middle of August the White Bear and Wawandah set out with two others on an excursion, which was to last five days. Time had so accustomed the Sunflower to the presence of her brother, and his absence on similar occasions had so seldom exceeded a couple of days, that when the fifth had arrived she was uneasy and unhappy; and her longing for Wawandah’s return became such that she now, for the first time, became aware of the full extent of her own feelings for him. She trembled to admit the truth to herself, but it was in vain to conceal it. Guilt was in her soul. She loved Wawandah. True, but she was resolved that while she sought not to change the character of their existing relations, she would allow them to go no further.
It has already been shown that the Sunflower was in the habit of bathing in the stream on which the encampment of the Saukies had been pitched. This was about a mile up, and in a secluded nook or narrow bay, the overhanging banks of which, closely studded with trees, formed a complete shelter from the observation of the passing stranger. The evening of the day previous to that on which the hunters were expected back was exceedingly sultry, and the Sunflower had gone with another Saukie—a daughter of one of the chiefs—to indulge in her favorite and refreshing bath. After disporting themselves for some time in the running and refreshing stream, they were preparing to resume their dress, when both were startled by a low and sudden growl from the top of the bank immediately above them. The Saukie maiden looked for a moment, and then trembling in every limb, and yet without daring to utter a word, pointed out to the Sunflower, on whose shoulder she leaned, two glaring eyes which, without seeing more of the animal, they at once felt to be those of a panther evidently fixed on themselves. The animal gave another low growl, and by the crashing of the underwood amid which it lay, they knew it was about to give its final spring. Filled with terror the Sunflower uttered a loud scream and even as the animal sprang downward from his lair the report of a rifle resounded, and the whizzing ball was distinctly heard as it passed their ears. The water around the gurgling spot where the panther leaped into the stream, was deeply tinged with his blood. He had been wounded, but not so severely as to prevent him from being an object of unabated terror. Not five seconds, however, had elapsed, before another form came from the very spot whence the panther had sprung. The beast, infuriated by its wound, was running or rather bounding rapidly toward the Sunflower, who, paralyzed at the danger, stood incapable of motion, and standing immersed up to her waist in the stream, and with her long dark hair floating over its surface. With a wild and savage cry, meant to divert his attention to himself, Wawandah, for it was he, pursued the animal as rapidly as he could through the interposing water. Startled by his unexpected appearance, the Sunflower became, for the first time, conscious of her position, when turning, she fled as fast as she could with a view to gain the beach and turn the ascent to the hill. This act saved her from severe laceration, if not death, for it afforded time for Wawandah to overtake the monster. Seeing itself closely pursued, the latter turned to defend itself, and before Wawandah could seize it by the back of the neck, with a force against which it vainly struggled, it had severely wounded him in the left shoulder. Infuriated with pain, and still more so at what he knew to be the exposed position of the Sunflower, the latter, even while the teeth of the panther were fastened in his shoulder, drew from his side his deadly knife, and burying it to the handle in its heart, while he worked furiously to enlarge the wound, at length contrived to leave it lifeless floating on the surface of the stream. This done, his first care was the safety of the Sunflower. He knew that while he continued there she would not return for her clothes, which were lying on the beach immediately under the point from which he had, on hearing the scream, leaped into the river, and therefore he had no alternative than to call out in clear and distinct tones that she might return without fear, as the panther was dead and he himself about to ascend the bank on the opposite side, to secure his rifle and await her coming, as, after the danger she had so barely escaped, he was determined not to allow her to be exposed, unprotected, to another.
That evening it was made known in every part of the Saukie encampment by the daughter of the chief, that but for the sudden appearance and prompt action of the brave Wawandah, both herself and the Sunflower would have been torn to pieces by an enormous and savage panther, whose eyes were balls of fire, and whose teeth were like the wild boar’s tusk. Again were the plaudits of the camp bestowed upon him, and the head chief ordered a war dance to be performed in honor of the exploit.
The dance was continued until late at night, but Wawandah did not mix in it. Thoughts were passing in his mind that little disposed him to join in festivities given in honor of himself. For the first time, that day he had seen enough of the symmetry of form of the Sunflower to know that she could no longer be as a mere sister to him. He felt that she must be to him as a wife or he must die. Giving as a reason, and it was a true one, that his arm pained him very much, he retired to his bear-skin couch long before the war dance had terminated.