A Warriors Daughter | Page 2

she stood. In the man's own
tongue, for he had taught her many words and phrases, she exploded,
"Thank you, good uncle, thank you!" then tore away from sheer excess
of glee.
The proud warrior father, smiling and narrowing his eyes, muttered
approval, "Howo! Hechetu!"
LIKE her mother, Tusee has finely pencilled eyebrows and slightly
extended nostrils; but in her sturdiness of form she resembles her
father.

A loyal daughter, she sits within her teepee making beaded deerskins
for her father, while he longs to stave off her every suitor as all
unworthy of his old heart's pride. But Tusee is not alone in her dwelling.
Near the entrance-way a young brave is half reclining on a mat. In
silence he watches the petals of a wild rose growing on the soft
buckskin.
"I asked him for his only daughter."
Quickly the young woman slips the beads on the silvery sinew thread,
and works them into the pretty flower design. Finally, in a low, deep
voice, the young man begins:
"The sun is far past the zenith. It is now only a man's height above the
western edge of land. I hurried hither to tell you to-morrow I join the
war party."
He pauses for reply, but the maid's head drops lover over her deerskin,
and her lips are more firmly drawn together. He continues:
"Last night in the moonlight I met your warrior father. He seemed to
know I had just stepped forth from your teepee. I fear he did not like it,
for though I greeted him, he was silent. I halted in his pathway. With
what boldness I dared, while my heart was beating hard and fast, I
asked him for his only daughter.
"Drawing himself erect to his tallest height, and gathering his loose
robe more closely about his proud figure, he flashed a pair of piercing
eyes upon me.
"'Young man,' said he, with a cold, slow voice that chilled me to the
marrow of my bones, 'hear me. Naught but an enemy's scalp-lock,
plucked fresh with your own hand, will buy Tusee for your wife.' Then
he turned on his heel and stalked away."
Tusee thrusts her work aside. With earnest eyes she scans her lover's
face.

"My father's heart is really kind. He would know if you are brave and
true," murmured the daughter, who wished no ill-will between her two
loved ones.
Then rising to go, the youth holds out a right hand. "Grasp my hand
once firmly before I go, Hoye. Pray tell me, will you wait and watch for
my return?"
Tusee only nods assent, for mere words are vain.
At early dawn the round camp-ground awakes into song. Men and
women sing of bravery and of triumph. They inspire the swelling
breasts of the painted warriors mounted on prancing ponies bedecked
with the green branches of trees.
Riding slowly around the great ring of cone-shaped teepees, here and
there, a loud-singing warrior swears to avenge a former wrong, and
thrusts a bare brown arm against the purple east, calling the Great Spirit
to hear his vow. All having made the circuit, the singing war party
gallops away southward.
Astride their ponies laden with food and deerskins, brave elderly
women follow after their warriors. Among the foremost rides a young
woman in elaborately beaded buckskin dress. Proudly mounted, she
curbs with the single rawhide loop a wild-eyed pony.
It is Tusee on her father's warhorse. Thus the war party of Indian men
and their faithful women vanish beyond the southern skyline.
A day's journey brings them very near the enemy's borderland.
Nightfall finds a pair of twin teepees nestled in a deep ravine. Within
one lounge the painted warriors, smoking their pipes and telling weird
stories by the firelight, while in the other watchful women crouch
uneasily about their centre fire.
By the first gray light in the east the teepees are banished. They are
gone. The warriors are in the enemy's camp, breaking dreams with their
tomahawks. The women are hid away in secret places in the long

thicketed ravine.
The day is far spent, the red sun is low over the west.
At length straggling warriors return, one by one, to the deep hollow. In
the twilight they number their men. Three are missing. Of these absent
ones two are dead; but the third one, a young man, is a captive to the
foe.
"He-he!" lament the warriors, taking food in haste.
In silence each woman, with long strides, hurries to and fro, tying large
bundles on her pony's back. Under cover of night the war party must
hasten homeward. Motionless, with bowed head, sits a woman in her
hiding-place. She grieves for her lover.
In bitterness of spirit she hears the warriors' murmuring words. With set
teeth she plans to