aying
something, but always remained silent. Yet his bearing towards Henry was
most friendly, and it gave the captive boy a pang. He knew the hope that
was in the mind of White Lightning, but he knew that hope could never
come true.

"We do not wish to make you suffer, Ware," he said, when they came to
the door of Henry's prison lodge, "until we decide what we are to do
with you, and before then much water must flow down Ohezuhyeandawa (The
Ohio)."

"I do not ask you to do anything that is outside your customs," said
Henry quietly.

"We must bind you as before," said Timmendiquas, "but we bind you in a
way that does not hurt, and Heno will bring you food and water. But this
is a day of rejoicing with us, and this afternoon our young men and
young maids dance. You shall come forth and see it."

Henry was re-bound, and a half hour later old Heno appeared with food,
meat of the deer and wild turkey, bread of maize, and a large gourd
filled with pure cold water. After he had loosened Henry's wrists that
he might eat and drink he sat by and talked. Thunder, with further
acquaintance, was disclosing signs of volubility.

"How you like ball game?" he asked.

"Good! very good!" said Henry sincerely, "and I don't see, Thunder, how
you could throw that ball so straight up in the air that it would come
down where you stood."

"Much practice, long practice," said the old man modestly. "Heno been
throwing up balls longer by twice than you have lived."

When the boy had finished eating, old Heno told him to come with him as
the dance was now about to begin, and Henry was glad enough to escape
again from the close prison lodge.

The dancers were already forming on the meadow where the ball game had
been played, and there was the same interest and excitement, although
now it was less noisy. Henry guessed from their manner that the dance
would not only be an amusement, but would also have something of the
nature of a rite.

All the dancers were young, young warriors and girls, and they faced
each other in two lines, warriors in one and girls in the other. As in
the ball game, each line numbered about a hundred, but now they were in
their brightest and most elaborate raiment. The two lines were perfectly
even, as straight as an arrow, the toe of no moccasin out of line, and
they were about a rod apart.

At the far end of the men's line a warrior raised in his right hand a
dry gourd which contained beads and pebbles, and be