And so it was that to every woman's
breast there hung a papoose, and every woman had her man, and the red men
were like leaves in the forest--but it was a winter of winters ago, and
the Medicine Men have forgotten; and thou hast no child! 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. "It is Medicine for a white man,
will it be Medicine for an Indian?"
"Am I not a white man's wife?"
"But if there were the Sun Medicine also, the Medicine of the days long
ago?"
"Tell me. If you remember--Kai! but you do remember--I see it in your
face. Tell me, and I will make that Medicine also, my mother."
"To-morrow, if I remember it--I will think, and if I remember it,
to-morrow I will tell you, my heart's blood. Maybe my dream will come
to me and tell me. Then, even after all these years, a papoose--"
"But the boat will go at dawn to-morrow, and if he go also--"
"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.
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