"I Know of No Warrior Who is More Worthy to Wear
It than the Eagle"
I dared not look around me, as she bent her dark head over the clasp, her hair just brushing my face. For an unconscionably long time, it seemed to me, she fumbled over it, and then with a little sigh of satisfaction, she straightened up. "There," she said, with a nervous laugh.
"Winona," I said gravely, for in truth I was in the most awkward position in which I had ever been placed, "the Eagle thanks thee for thy courtesy, and will wear the belt always to remind him of thee. It will be a bright spot in his life, which he will cherish, when he has returned again to his own far distant country." And extending my hand, I caught her little brown one in mine, and carrying it to my lips as though she were some princess, I kissed it.
She flushed again happily, her dark eyes soft with light as she looked at me.
The sullen voice of Chawanook rang out behind me: "And so the daughter of a great chief stoops to bestow her love upon a nameless dog of a captive!"
The girl had raised her head proudly at his words, for there flowed in her veins the blood of a line of savage chiefs. She answered him scornfully:
"If Chawanook would meet his fathers let him face the Eagle alone in yon ring. As for me," and her voice rang out clear and full, "my love is my own, to bestow where I will; it shall never be given to such as Chawanook."
The young brave answered angrily:
"I sought Winona to bestow upon her the necklace of blue beads, for which many of the maidens sigh but I would bestow it upon the most beautiful, even upon Winona. What do I find here? That Winona shamefully has confessed before the whole village her love for the pale man, who is a captive among us, by bestowing upon him the wampum belt." And almost beside himself, Chawanook tore the necklace in his hands into a dozen fragments, and cast them from him.