So many endorsed the young chief that confusion for the time prevented
Great Oak from speaking, which might have been mistaken for yielding;
when that crafty chief springing from among the ever-green bushes,
confronted the chiefs, and in a loud voice of ferocious exultation and
of triumph, tauntingly demanded:

"What says the Sagamore? Does he tell the young warriors a lie? The wolf
was in the arms of Black Snake when the Fawn was in the arms of her
father."

Turning with an annihilating look upon the base Indian, whose last
sentence conveyed an unpardonable taunt to any Indian chief, the
Sagamore, with the firmness of the rocks around him and in clear
distinct words replied:

"Dare pass judgement upon the deeds of a sachem who hath sat in council
with thy father's father? Look to thyself Black Snake, the hissing
spirits in the boiling waters below are calling for thee. I have said."

Bestowing upon his daughter a long look of thwarted love and final
resignation, in words at once unyieldingly firm, but full of, the
Indians' bright hopes and promises for the future, he pronounced her
doom, which none dared question.

"My child, the Manitou hath need of thee; thou must soon travel the
bright path and join thy mother beyond the clouds. The big moon shows
the path brightest now; and that thou mayst not stumble or lose thy way,
go prepare thyself at once as the child of thy father should, to
joyfully carry the gifts most precious to the Great Manitou for the