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Updated: June 24, 2025
"And because you are good," she went on, "and because you have heard the vow, when this broken blade comes to your hand you will know that Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, in the last extremity of her need, is calling you. "And because you are strong and brave and have the good eye you will come.
For deep in her heart is seared the memory of two winters ago, when Moncrossen gazed upon the beauty of Jeanne, and came to the tepee in the night, knowing I was away, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta fought him in the darkness until he fled, cursing and swearing vengeance.
"Wa-ha-ta-na-ta says 'all men die," he replied; "but did not the chechako come into the North in the time of a great snow, and without rackets mush forty miles in two days? Did he not kill with a knife Diablesse, the werwolf, whom all men feared, and with an axe chop in pieces the wolves of her pack? "Did he not strike fear to the heart of the great Moncrossen with a look of his eye?
Moncrossen, too, realized that pursuit would be useless, and in his rage leveled his rifle at the figure upon the ground. "Come back here!" he cried. "Come back, or by God I'll plug her like I plugged " He stopped abruptly and glanced along the sights. The girl hesitated, and the voice of Wa-ha-ta-na-ta fell sharply upon her ear: "No! No! Do not come! He will not shoot!
"Then M's'u' Bill arose and folded his blankets and made up his pack, and when he spoke to her again it was in the voice of the terrible softness the softness that causes men first to wonder, and then to obey, though they know not why. He said that he himself would take her back, and that Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, who is old and very wise, would know that his words were true.
"We must go then," said Bill, and added more to himself than to Jeanne: "I wonder if he would dare?" "He would dare anything that is not good!" the girl answered quickly. "He has the bad heart. But Wa-ha-ta-na-ta will not starve quickly. She is old and tough, and can go for many days without food; as in the time of the famine when she refused to eat that we, her children, might live.
She listened, and with few words and all the dramatic eloquence of the pure Indian the half-breed girl told of the rescue from the river; of her own love for M's'u' Bill, "The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die"; of his firm rejection of that love; of her pursuit of him when he started for the land of the white man; of the scene at the camp-fire when old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta called him "The One Good White Man"; of the broken knife; of The Promise; of her peril at the hand of Moncrossen, and of the cold-blooded shooting of her brother.
"And not only you will I kill, but him also," she answered, testing its edge upon her thumb. "For the moon has spoken, and blood will flow. Last night, in the wet red moon, I saw it dripping tears of blood twelve, besides one small one, and they were swallowed up in the mist of the river. I, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, who know the signs, have spoken.
"It is," the guide began, as if carefully weighing his words, "that you are the good friends of M's'u' Bill. Also I have seen that you know the men of the logs. "Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, my mother, who is old and very wise, knows the men of the logs, and, knowing them, hated M's'u' Bill, and would have returned him to the river, but Jeanne prevented.
Stooping, the old woman picked up the two pieces of the broken sheath-knife, and, handing the hilt gravely to the astonished man carefully returned the blade to her blanket. She pointed a long, skinny finger at Bill, and the withered lips moved. "You are the one good white man," she said. "I, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, have spoken.
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