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She was smiling a little now, for she had thought of a thing which would, perhaps, keep the man here in this lodge in the wilderness; but the time to speak of it was not yet. She must wait and see. Suddenly Mitiahwe got to her feet with a spring, and a light in her eyes.
But at last Dingan had broken through this custom, and insisted that Swift Wing should be with her daughter when he was away from home, as now on this wonderful autumn morning, when Mitiahwe had been singing to the Sun, to which she prayed for her man and for everlasting days with him.
Mitiahwe looked into Swift Wing's dark eyes, and an anger came upon her. "The hearts of cowards will freeze," she rejoined, "and to those that will not see the sun the world will be dark," she added.
As he disappeared among the trees Mitiahwe disengaged herself from her mother's arms, went slowly back into the lodge, and sat down on the great couch where, for so many moons, she had lain with her man beside her. Her mother watched her closely, though she moved about doing little things.
When Long Hand comes, what will Mitiahwe say to him?" Mitiahwe's eyes were determined, her face was set, she flushed deeply, then the colour fled. "What my mother would say, I will say. Shall the white man's Medicine fail? If I wish it, then it will be so: and I will say so." "But if the white man's Medicine fail?" Swift Wing made a gesture toward the door where the horse-shoe hung.
"I heard a cry in the night while my man slept," Mitiahwe answered, looking straight before her, "and it was like the cry of a bird calling, calling, calling." "But he did not hear he was asleep beside Mitiahwe. If he did not wake, surely it was good-luck. Thy breath upon his face kept him sleeping. Surely it was good-luck to Mitiahwe that he did not hear."
As he disappeared among the trees Mitiahwe disengaged herself from her mother's arms, went slowly back into the lodge, and sat down on the great couch where, for so many moons, she had lain with her man beside her. Her mother watched her closely, though she moved about doing little things.
"Mitiahwe is young, her body is warm, her eyes are bright, the songs she sings, her tongue if these keep him not, and the Voice calls him still to go, then still Mitiahwe shall whisper, and tell him " "Hai-yo-hush," said the girl, and trembled a little, and put both hands on her mother's mouth.
In the days to come Swift Wing said that it was her Medicine; when her hand was burned to the wrist in the dark ritual she had performed with the Medicine Man the night that Mitiahwe fought for her man but Mitiahwe said it was her Medicine, the horse-shoe, which brought one of Dingan's own people to the lodge, a little girl with Mitiahwe's eyes and form and her father's face.
It was like a low recitative, and it had a plaintive cadence, as of a dove that mourned. "Mitiahwe," he said, in a louder voice, but with a break in it, too; for it all rushed upon him, all that she had been to him all that had made the great West glow with life, made the air sweeter, the grass greener, the trees more companionable and human: who it was that had given the waste places a voice.
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