"I had fear that you would tell him; stay a little, and let me tell you now. I went on after Luella until I found her. I had the name of the white man to guide me. She was living as the pale-faces live, in a great town of many lodges.
"I saw with my eyes that she was happy, and then I walked many moons back to the Huron, and rowed across the lake in a canoe that I found in the woods.
"Luella came back again. I don't know how she found the way alone, but she came into the wigwam when the leaves were falling, and before the buds grew again she went to Uncas in the West. I asked her about the white man, and she shook her head and hid her eyes. I asked her for the boy, and she threw open her arms wide, to show me he was not there. Look!" said the woman, "I am dying; I'm very old; I ought to have walked with Luella this long time. Listen,—let me teach you. The pale face that you look into has eyes like my Luella. Take care! When he would walk under the stars alone, go not with him. When he would hunt bison, give him all the prairie; don't stand at the wigwam-door to keep him in. And when you are far away beyond my people, you may see this,"—and she handed to me the small parcel from close to her wild heart. I took it.
"You'll keep it for Luella's sake. She held it close when she went away; now I'm going, there's no one else to care. Bring it with you, when the Great Spirit calls."
I could win no more words from the woman. She spoke to those who came to her, and Saul said she told them that I had "taken away the torment."
"I shall think my Lucy witches somebody beside poor Saul," said my husband; and he gave a sigh as he stood in the tent-door, and watched the westering moon for the last time.
In the morning they told us that the Prophetess had gone into the light beyond the Sun.
Saul went in to see her, and as he came back to me I saw that he was not in a mood for words. Our farewell was very silent. Meotona went with us. Once again, bounding over the prairie, my heart grew lighter than it had been for many days; but I had no opportunity to examine Luella's treasure.
We met the long caravan of wagons on the summit of the Great Divide, and it was joy to unite my fate once more with that of my countrymen. Saul saw this, and said,—
"Know now, Lucy, that you have the portion meted out to me, when I saw the freemen of the wild coming. Your pleasure is that of civilization; mine was that of barbaric life. I bid adieu to it henceforth,"—and my brave husband, at this instant, looked out upon the head-waters of the Neosho, where Nature, when she built up the world, must have made a storehouse of material, and never came back for her treasures, they lie so magnificently rolled over the land.