Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
The Indian was too well skilled in all the means of deception to become himself the victim of any common artifice. He knew the sound to be natural, by its peculiar quivering, and he hesitated no longer. A man of nerves less tried than those of the fierce and conquering Mahtoree would have been keenly sensible of all the hazard he incurred.
The preparations for flight were made, the night fixed upon came, and they left the village of the Mahas and the lodge of Mahtoree for the wilderness.
And well was Tatoka, or the Antelope, for that was the name of the daughter of Mahtoree and Sakeajah, worthy to be loved. She was beautiful, as young Indian maidens generally are, before the hard duties of the field and the cabin have bowed their limbs, and servitude has chilled the fire of their hearts.
The trapper laughed in his silent fashion, and muttered a few words to himself before he addressed the chief "Let the Dahcotah open his ears very wide," he said 'that big words may have room to enter. His friend the Big-knife comes with an empty hand, and he says that the Teton must fill it." "Wagh! Mahtoree is a rich chief. He is master of the prairies." "He must give the dark-hair."
Numberless were the warriors, who had sent presents to the lodge of her parents, but none of them were listened to until a messenger from the great Mahtoree had come. She was his third wife, it is true, but she was confessedly the most favoured of them all.
A frightful gleam of ferocity broke out of the restraint of the Dahcotah's countenance, as he listened to this biting insult; but he was quick in subduing the tell-tale feeling, in an expression much better suited to his present purpose. "This is the way a young chief should talk of war," he answered with singular composure; "but Mahtoree has seen the misery of more winters than his brother.
The young soldier seized the reins of the animal, and glances of sudden anger and lofty pride were exchanged between them. "No man takes this seat but myself," said Middleton, sternly, in English. "Mahtoree is a great chief!" retorted the savage; neither comprehending the meaning of the other's words.
Had one been there to watch the countenance of Mahtoree, as he crossed the water that separated him from the most formidable and the most hated of all his rivals, he might have fancied that he could trace the gleamings of a secret joy, breaking through the cloud which deep cunning and heartless treachery had drawn before his swarthy visage; and yet there would have been moments, when he might have believed that the flashings of the Teton's eye and the expansion of his nostrils, had their origin in a nobler sentiment, and one more worthy of an Indian chief.
"If the tongue of Mahtoree ever says thus," returned the crafty chief, with an appearance of strong indignation, "let his women cut it out, and burn it with the offals of the buffaloe.
Content with the momentary examination he had made, the eldest of the group, who was in truth the delinquent sentinel by whose remissness the wily Mahtoree had so well profited, turned towards his father and said bluntly "If this man is all that is left of the party I saw on the upland, yonder, we haven't altogether thrown away our ammunition."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking