and half-breed rising was threatened; and to the powerless
chief it had become a token of his authority, the sign of the Great
White Mother's approval. By day a spray of eagle's feathers waved over
his tepee, but the gleam of the brass lantern every night was like a
sentry at the doorway of a monarch.

It was a solace to his wounded spirit; it allayed the smart of
subjection; made him feel himself a ruler in retirement, even as Gabriel
Druse was a self-ordained exile.

These two men, representing the primitive nomad life, had been drawn
together in friendship. So much so, that to Tekewani alone of all the
West, Druse gave his confidence and told his story. It came in the
springtime, when the blood of the young bucks was simmering and, the
ancient spell was working. There had preceded them generations of
hunters who had slain their thousands and their tens of thousands of
wild animals and the fowls of the air; had killed their enemies in
battle; had seized the comely women of their foes and made them their
own. No thrill of the hunter's trail now drew off the overflow of
desire. In the days of rising sap, there were only the young maidens or
wives of their own tribe to pursue, and it lacked in glory. Also in the
springtime, Tekewani himself had his own trials, for in his blood the
old medicine stirred. His face turned towards the prairie North and the
mountain West where yet remained the hunter's quarry; and he longed to
be away with rifle and gun, with his squaw and the papooses trailing
after like camp-followers, to eat the fruits of victory. But that could
not be; he must remain in the place the Great White Mother had reserved
for him; he and his braves must assemble, and draw their rations at the
appointed times and seasons, and grunt thanks to those who ruled over
them.

It was on one of these virginal days, when there was a restless stirring
among the young bucks, who smelled the wide waters, the pines and the
wild shrubs; who heard the cry of the loon on the lonely lake and
the whir of the wild duck's wings, who answered to the phantom cry
of ancient war; it was on such a day that the two chiefs opened their
hearts to each other.

Near to the boscage on a little hill overlooking the great river,
Gabriel Druse had come upon Tekewani seated in the pine-dust, rocking to
and fro, and chanting a low, sorrowful refrain, with eyes fixed on the
setting sun. And the Ry of Rys understood, with the understanding
which