up and broken; little streams had disappeared, even large
rivers had ceased to be. The tall magnolia lay broken in many pieces,
the larch tree had been snapped like a rotten reed. The flowers of the
meadows were scorched and seared, the deer in the thicket lay mangled
and bruised, the birds sat timid and shy on the broken bough. The people
called their priests together, and demanded why these things were. The
priests answered, "Because the Master of Life was angry, but with whom
they knew not. Yet soon should they learn, for there was one coming
hither who would be able to tell them."

[Footnote A: Wekolis--the whip-poor-will.]

Three suns had passed, and the knowledge of the cause still remained
hidden from them. On the morning of the fourth day, when the chief went
out of his lodge, he found his beloved daughter weeping by the door of
the cabin. Oh! how changed was the beautiful Mekaia--she was no longer a
Star-flower. The brightness of her eye had departed, as the beauty of
the green fields and leafy forests is driven hence by the chills of
winter, her cheek was sunken and hollow, her long black locks lay
uncombed upon her shoulders, and the joy and cheerfulness which once
warmed her heart, and made her foot lighter than the antelope's, were no
more. She, whose feet were fleeter than the deer's, now walked feebly,
and rested oft; she, whose tongue outchirped the merriest birds of the
grove, and warbled sweeter music than the song-sparrow, now spoke in
strains as gloomy and sad as the bittern that cries in the swamps when
night is coming on, or the solitary bird of wisdom perched among the
leaves of the oak. The father sat down by her, and asked her whence she
came.

"From the valley upon this side of the mountains," she answered.

"Where is thy husband?" demanded Wasabajinga.

"Dead," answered the Starflower, and wept afresh.

"Wah!" exclaimed the warrior, and hid his face with his hands. When he
had sat thus awhile, he inquired the manner of his death. She told him,
that, before they reached the mountains of the Wahconda, they saw a pale
man coming towards them, mounted on a low, black horse. When he came up
them, he asked her husband if he would buy blankets, and beads, and the
fire-eater. That the Wahconda's son answered, "No;" and told him it was
very--very bad in him to carry the fire-eater, to destroy the poor
misguided Indians. The man upon the black horse answered, "That he was a
better man than the Wah