Then again she would marshal before her his weaknesses and
defects, and would vainly try to persuade herself to believe that the
man who had been in the tent of Memotas and had heard him pray, and had
then gone into the devil dance and had voluntarily suffered the tortures
of _hock-e-a-yum_, was unworthy of her notice. Then suddenly, as the
memory of what he must have suffered in those terrible ordeals came
before her, her bright eyes would fill with tears, and she found herself
impulsively longing for the opportunity to drive the recollection of
such suffering from her mind and heart, and to be the one to save him
from their repetition. Amid these conflicting emotions there was one
thought that kept coming up in her mind and giving her much trouble, and
that was, "Why had he left so abruptly? Why did he not at least come
and say `Good-bye?' or why had he not left at least some little message
for her?"

Over these queries she pondered, and they were more than once thrown at
her by the young Indian maidens, as with them she was skillfully
decorating with beads some snow-white moccasins she had made.

Thus pondered Astumastao through the long weeks that were passing by
since Oowikapun left her, while he, brave fellow, little dreaming that
such conflicting feelings were in her heart, was putting his life in
jeopardy, and enduring hardships innumerable, to save and benefit the
one who had become dearer to him than life itself.

Thus the time rolled on, and all her efforts to banish him from her mind
proved failures, and it came to pass that, like the true, noble girl
that she was, she could only think of that which was brave and good
about him, and so when some startling rumours of a delightful character
began to be circulated among the wigwams, our heroine, Astumastao,
without knowing the reason why, at once associated them with Oowikapun.
News travels rapidly sometimes, even in the lands where telegraphs and
express trains are unknown. It does not always require the
well-appointed mail service to carry the news rapidly through the land.

During the terrible civil war in the United States there was among the
Negroes of the South what was known as the grapevine telegraphy, by
which the coloured people in remote sections often had news of success
or disaster to the army of "Uncle Abraham," as they loved to call
President Lincoln, long before the whites had any knowledge of what had
occurred.

So it was among the I