echana the daughter of a chief?" demanded a subdued voice,
in which pride struggled with anguish: "were not her brothers braves?"

"Go; the men are calling their partisan. He has no ears for a woman."

"No," replied the supplicant; "it is not the voice of Tachechana that
you hear, but this boy, speaking with the tongue of his mother. He
is the son of a chief, and his words will go up to his father's ears.
Listen to what he says. When was Mahtoree hungry and Tachechana had
not food for him? When did he go on the path of the Pawnees and find it
empty, that my mother did not weep? When did he come back with the marks
of their blows, that she did not sing? What Sioux girl has given a brave
a son like me? Look at me well, that you may know me. My eyes are the
eagle's. I look at the sun and laugh. In a little time the Dahcotahs
will follow me to the hunts and on the war-path. Why does my father turn
his eyes from the woman that gives me milk? Why has he so soon forgotten
the daughter of a mighty Sioux?"

There was a single instant, as the exulting father suffered his cold eye
to wander to the face of the laughing boy, that the stern nature of the
Teton seemed touched. But shaking off the grateful sentiment, like one
who would gladly be rid of any painful, because reproachful, emotion,
he laid his hand calmly on the arm of his wife, and led her directly in
front of Inez. Pointing to the sweet countenance that was beaming on her
own, with a look of tenderness and commiseration, he paused, to allow
his wife to contemplate a loveliness, which was quite as excellent to
her ingenuous mind as it had proved dangerous to the character of her
faithless husband. When he thought abundant time had passed to make the
contrast sufficiently striking, he suddenly raised a small mirror, that
dangled at her breast, an ornament he had himself bestowed, in an hour
of fondness, as a compliment to her beauty, and placed her own dark
image in its place. Wrapping his robe again about him, the Teton
motioned to the trapper to follow, and stalked haughtily from the lodge,
muttering, as he went--

"Mahtoree is very wise! What nation has so great a chief as the
Dahcotahs?"

Tachechana stood frozen into a statue of humility. Her mild and usually
joyous countenance worked, as if the struggle within was about to
dissolve the connection between her soul and that more material part,
whose deformity was becoming so loathsome. Inez and Ellen were utterly
i