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father.
 Old as I am, and miserable and helpless as I now stand, to what I once was,
I may live to see the sun go down in the prairie. Does my son expect ever to
see darkness come again?
 The Tetons are counting the scalps on my lodge! returned the young chief,
with a smile whose melancholy was singularly illuminated by a gleam of
triumph.
 And they find them many. Too many for the safety of its owner, while he is
in their revengeful hands. My son is not a woman, and he looks on the path he
is about to travel with a steady eye. Has he nothing to whisper in the ears of
his people before he starts? These legs are old, but they may yet carry me to
the forks of the Loup-river.
 Tell them that Hard-Heart has tied a knot in his wampum for every Teton!
burst from the lips of the captive, with that vehemence with which sudden
passion is known to break through the barriers of artificial restraint;  if he
meets one of them all, in the prairies of the Master of Life, his heart will
become Sioux!
 Ah! that feeling would be a dangerous companion for a man with white gifts
to start with on such a solemn journey, muttered the old man in English.
 This is not what the good Moravians said to the councils of the Delawares,
nor what is so often preached, to the White-skins in the settlements, though
to the shame of the colour be it said, it is so little heeded. Pawnee, I love
you; but being a Christian man I cannot be the runner to bear such a message.
 If my father is afraid the Tetons will hear him, let him whisper it softly
to our old men.
 As for fear, young warrior, it is no more the shame of a Pale-face than of a
Red-skin. The Wahcondah teaches us to love the life he gives; but it is as men
love their hunts, and their dogs, and their carabines, and not with the doting
that a mother looks upon her infant. The Master of Life will not have to speak
aloud twice when he calls my name. I am as ready to answer to it now, as I
shall be to-morrow, or at any time it may please his mighty will. But what is
a warrior without his traditions? Mine forbid me to carry your words.
The chief made a dignified motion of assent, and here there was great danger
that those feelings of confidence, which had been so singularly awakened,
would as suddenly subside. But the heart of the old man had been too sensibly
touched, through long dormant but still living recollections, to break off the
communication so rudely. He pondered for a minute, and then bending his look
wistfully on his young associate, again continued--
 Each warrior must be judged by his gifts. I have told my son what I cannot,
but let him open his ears to what I can do. An elk shall not measure the
prairie much swifter than these old legs, if the Pawnee will give me a message
that a white man may bear.
 Let the Pale-face listen; returned the other, after hesitating a single
instant longer, under a lingering sensation of his former disappointment.  He
will stay here till the Siouxes have done counting the scalps of their dead
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warriors. He will wait until they have tried to cover the heads of eighteen
Tetons with the skin of one Pawnee; he will open his eyes wide, that he may
see the place where they bury the bones of a warrior.
 All this will I and may I, do, noble boy.
 He will mark the spot that he may know it.
 No fear, no fear that I shall forget the place, interrupted the other,
whose fortitude began to give way under so trying an exhibition of calmness
and resignation.
 Then I know that my father will go to my people. His head is grey and his
words will not be blown away with the smoke. Let him get on my lodge, and call
the name of Hard-Heart aloud. No Pawnee will be deaf. Then let my father ask
for the colt, that has never been ridden, but which is sleeker than the buck,
and swifter than the elk.
 I understand you, boy, I understand you, interrupted the attentive old man;
 and what you say shall be done, ay, and well done too, or I m but little
skilled in the wishes of a dying Indian. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]