Raymond Evelyn
The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“Mercy, if you were only a little more talkative, you’d be better company!” teased Gaspar, who was eager for the finish of the story and his supper.

“Now – you! Well, laugh away. I don’t mind. All is, when Abel saw the trick Ossy had played on the Doctor, he plays one on Ossy. He’d caught a queer sort of animal, as I said, and he was fetchin’ it to Kit. Everybody brings her everything, from rattlesnakes up. But when he saw that ox, he just opens the tin box and claps the creature inside and then hunts up Ossy. He says: ‘There’s something in that box pretty suspicious, boy. You might look an’ see what ’tis but don’t let on.’ He’s that curiosity, Osceolo has, that he forgot everything else and stuck his hand in sly. I expect he thought it was something to eat, or likely to drink, and he got bit. Hand’s all tore and sore, and now Abel’s scared and gone off with him to the surgeon at the Fort, and there’ll be trouble. Ossy was muttering something about the ‘Black Hawk coming and that he’d had enough of the white folks. He was born an Indian, and an Indian he’d die’; and to the land! I hope he will! He makes more mischief in this settlement than you can shake a stick at!”

“‘It’s hard for a bird to get away from its tail,’” quoted Gaspar, lightly. “Osceolo began life wrong and his reputation clings to him. I’ll take the saddle off Jim, and let’s go in to supper. None of my Sun Maid’s tribe is to be feared, I think, no matter how direly they may threaten.”

Yet the young husband glanced toward his wife with an anxiety that he would not have liked her to see. During the weeks since his return to the village he had learned much more than he had told her of a movement far beyond the Indian encampments she was accustomed to visit, which would bring serious trouble, if not complete disaster, upon their beloved home. Osceolo was the Sun Maid’s devoted follower; yet the prank he had played upon the old Doctor, whom she so reverenced, showed that he was already throwing aside the restraints of his enforced civilization; and the sign was ominous.

CHAPTER XX.
ENEMIES, SEEN AND UNSEEN

But the time passed on and the rumors died away, or ended in nothing more serious than had always disturbed the dwellers in that lonely land. Now and again a friendly, peace-loving chief would ride up to the door of the Sun Maid’s home, and, after a brief consultation she would put on her Indian attire and ride back with him across the prairies. As of old, she went with a heart full of love for her Indian friends, but it was not the undivided love that she had once been able to give them.

Over her beautiful features had settled the brooding look which wifehood and motherhood gives; and though she listened as attentively as of old and counselled as wisely, she could not for one moment forget the little children waiting for her by her own hearthside or the brave husband who was so often away on his long journeys to the north; and the keen intelligence of the red men perceived this.

“She is ours no longer,” said a venerable warrior, after one such visit. “She has taken to herself a pale-face, he who met her on the prairie in the morning light, and her heart has gone from her. It is the way of life. The old passes, the new comes to reign. We are her past. Her Dark-Eye is her present. Her papooses are her future. The parting draws near. She is still the Sun Maid, the White Spirit, the Unafraid. As far as the Great Spirit wills, she will be faithful to us; but now when she rides homeward from a visit to our lodge it is no longer at the easy pace of one whose life is all her own, but wildly, swiftly, following her heart which has leaped before.”

Each morning, nearly, as the Sun Maid ministered to her little ones or busied herself among the domestic duties of her simple home she would joyfully exclaim to Wahneenah:

“I don’t believe there was ever a woman in the world so happy as I am!” And the Indian foster-mother would gravely reply:

“Ask the Great Spirit that the peace may long continue.”

Till, on one especial day, the younger woman demanded:

“Well, why should it not, my Mother? It is now many weeks since I have been called to settle any little quarrel among our people. Surely they are learning wisdom fast. Do you know something? I intend that some of the squaws who are idle shall make my baby, Gaspar the Second, a little costume of our own tribe. It shall be all complete; as if he were a tiny chief himself, with his leggings and head-dress, and – yes, even a little bow and quiver. I’ll have it finished, maybe, before his father comes down from this last trip into the far-away woods. Oh! I shall be glad when my ‘brave’ can trust all his business of mining and fur-buying and lumbering to somebody else. I miss him so. But won’t he be pleased with our little lad in feathers and buckskin?”

Wahneenah’s dark eyes looked keenly at her daughter’s face.

“No, beloved; he will not be pleased. In his heart of hearts, the white chief was ever the red man’s enemy. Me he loves and a few more. But let the White Papoose” (Wahneenah still called her foster-child by the old love names of her childhood) “let the White Papoose hear and remember: the day is near when the Dark-Eye will choose between his friends and the friends of his wife. It is time to prepare. There is a distress coming which shall make of this Chicago a burying-ground. Our Dark-Eye has bought much land. He is always, always buying. Some day he will sell and the gold in his purse will be too heavy for one man’s carrying. But first the darkness, the blood, the death. Let him choose now a house of refuge for you and the little children; choose it where there are trees to shelter and water to refresh. Let him build there a tepee large enough for all your needs, – a wigwam, remember, not a house. Let him stock it well with food and clothing and the guns which protect.”

“Why, Other Mother! What has come over you? Such a dismal prophecy as that is worse than any which old Katasha ever breathed. Are you ill, Wahneenah, dearest?”

“There is no sickness in my flesh; yet in my heart is a misery that bows it to the earth. But I warn you. If you would find favor in the eyes of your brave, clothe not his son in the costume of the red man.”

Kitty was unaccountably depressed. Hitherto she had been able to laugh aside the sometimes sombre auguries of the chief’s sister; but now something in the woman’s manner made her believe that she knew more than she disclosed of some impending disaster. However, it was not in her nature, nor did she believe it right, that she should worry over vague suggestions. So she answered once more before quite dismissing the subject:

“Well, we were already discussing the comfort of having another home out in the forest, and Abel has suggested that we build it on the land which was his farm and which Gaspar has bought. We both liked that; to have our own children play where we played as children. I want my little ones to learn about the wild things of the woods, and the dear old Doctor is still alive to teach them. You will like it, too, Other Mother. When the days grow hot and long we will ride to the ‘Refuge’; and I think the wigwam idea is better, after all, than the house; though I do not know what my husband will decide.”

“Before the days grow long, the ‘Refuge’ must be finished, and the earlier the better. It is rightly named, my daughter, and the time is ripe.”

Ere many hours had passed, and most unexpectedly to his wife, Gaspar returned. In the first happiness of welcoming him she did not observe that his face was stern and troubled; but she did notice, when bedtime came, that he did what had never before been done in their home: he locked or bolted the doors and stoutly barred the heavy wooden shutters. He had also brought Osceolo with him, from Abel’s tavern, and had peremptorily bidden the Indian to “Lie there!” pointing to a heap of skins on the floor beside the fire.

Toward morning Kitty woke. To her utter amazement, she saw in her living room her Gaspar and Osceolo engaged in what seemed a battle to the death. Then she sprang up and ran toward them, but her husband motioned her back.

“Leave him to me. I’ll fix him so that he’ll do no more mischief for the present.”

“But, Gaspar! What is it?”

“Treachery, as usual. Get into your clothes, my girl, and call Wahneenah. Let the children be dressed, – warmly, for the air is cool and we may have to leave suddenly.”

“What is it?”

“An outbreak! The settlers are flocking into the Fort in droves. Black Hawk and his followers have come too close for comfort. This miserable fellow has been tampering with the stores. He couldn’t get at the ammunition, but he’s done all the evil he could. I caught him hobnobbing with a low Sac; a spy, I think. There. He’s bound, and now I’ll fasten him in the wood-shed. He knows too much about this town to be left in freedom.”

Yet, after all, they did not have to flee from home, as Gaspar had feared, though the Sun Maid put on her peace dress and unbound her glorious hair, ready at any moment to ride forth and meet the Indians and to try her powers of promoting good-feeling. The Snowbird stood saddled for many days: yet it was only upon errands of hospitality and charity that he was needed.

Gaspar, however, was always in the saddle. When he was not riding far afield, scouting the movements of the Black Hawk forces, he was searching the countryside for provisions and himself guiding the wagons that brought in the scant supplies. One evening he returned more cheerful than he had seemed for many days and exclaimed as he tossed aside his cap:

“This has been a good trip, for two reasons.”

“What are they, dear?”

“Starvation is staved off for a while and the Indians are evidently in grave doubts of their own success in this horrid war.”

“Starvation, Gaspar? Has it been as bad as that?”

“Pretty close to it. But I’ve found a couple of men who had about a hundred and fifty head of cattle, and they’ve driven them here into the stockade. As long as they last, we shall manage. The other good thing is – that the Black Hawks are sacrificing to the Evil Spirit.”

“They are! That shows they are hopeless of their own success.”

“Certainly very doubtful of it. It is the dog immolation. I saw one instance myself and met a man who had come from the southwest. He has passed them at intervals of a day’s journey; always the same sort. The wretched little dog, fastened just above the ground, the nose pointing straight this way and the fire beneath.”

“Oh, Gaspar, it’s dreadful!”

“That they are discouraged? Kit, you don’t mean that?”

“No. No, no! You know better. But that they are such – such heathen!”

Another voice broke in upon them:

“Heathen! Heathen, you say? Well, if ever you was right in your life, you’re right now. I never saw such folks. Here I’ve been cookin’ and cooking till I’m done clean through myself; and in there’s come another lot, just as hungry as t’others. Dear me, dear me! Why in the name of common sense couldn’t I have stayed back there in the woods, and not come trapesing to Chicago to turn head slave for a lot of folks that act as if I’d ought to be grateful for the chance to kill myself a-waitin’ on them. And say, Gaspar Keith, have you heard the news? When did you get home?”

It was Mercy, of course, who had rushed excitedly into the house, yet had been able to rattle off a string of sentences that fairly took her hearers’ breath away, if not her own.

But Kitty was at her side at once, tenderly removing the great sun-bonnet from the hot gray head and offering a fan of turkey wings, gayly decorated with Indian embroideries of beads and weavings.

“No, Kit. No, you needn’t. Not while I know myself; there ain’t never no more red man’s tomfoolery going to be around me! Take that there Indian contraption away. I’d rather have a decent, honest cabbage-leaf any day. I’m beat out. My, ain’t it hot!”

“Yes, dear, it is awfully hot. Sit here in the doorway, in this big chair, and get what little breeze there is. Here’s another fan, which I made myself; plain, good Yankee manufacture. Try that. Then, when you get cooled off, tell us your ‘news.’”

“Cooled off? That I sha’n’t never be no more; not while I’ve got to cook for all creation.”

“Mother Mercy, Mother Mercy! You are a puzzler. You won’t let the people go anywhere else than to your house as long as there’s room to squeeze another body in; and – ”

“Ain’t it the tavern?”

“Of course. But people who keep taverns usually take pay for entertaining their guests.”

“Gaspar Keith! You say that to me, after the raisin’ I gave you? The idee! When not a blessed soul of the lot has got a cent to bless himself with.”

“But I have cents, plenty of them; and I want you to let me bear this expense for you. I insist upon it.”

“Well, lad, I always did think you was a little too sharp after the money. But I didn’t ’low you’d begrudge folks their blessings, too.”

“Blessings? Aren’t you complaining about so much hard work, and haven’t you the right? I know that no private family has cared for so many as you have, and – ”

“Oh, do drop that! I tell you I ain’t a private family; I’m a tavern. Oh! I don’t know what I am nor what I’m sayin’. I – I reckon I’m clean beat and tuckered out.”

“So you are, dear. But rest and I’ll make you a cup of tea. If you leave those people to themselves and they get hungry again they’ll cook for themselves. They’ll have to. But to a good many of these refugees this is a sort of picnic business. They have left their homes, it’s true; but they haven’t seen so many human faces in years and – ”

“They haven’t had such a good time! I noticed that. They seemed as bright as children at a frolic. Well, we ought to help them get what fun they can out of so serious a matter,” commented Gaspar.

“Serious! I should say so. That’s what sent me here. Abel, he was on the wharf, and he says the ships are coming down the lake full of soldiers; and what with them and the folks already here and only a hundred and fifty head to feed ’em with, and some of these refugees eat as much as ary parson I ever saw, and the old Doctor trying to preach to ’em, sayin’ it’s the best opportunity – my land! The way some folks can get sweet out of bitter is a disgrace, I declare. And as for that Ossy, the dirty scamp, he’s broke more dishes, washing them, than I’ve got left. And I run over to see if you’d let me have ary dish you’ve got, or shall I give ’em their stuff right in their hands? And how long have I got to go on watchin’ that wild Osceolo? I wish you’d take him back and shut him up in your wood-shed again.”

“But, Mother Mercy, it was you who begged his release. And I’m sure it’s better for him in your kitchen, working, than lying idle in an empty building, plotting mischief. Hello, here’s Abel. And he seems as excited as – as you were,” said Gaspar.

“Glory to government, youngsters! The military is coming! The General’s in sight! Now hooray! We’ll show them pesky red-skins a thing or two. If they ain’t wiped clean out of existence this time my name’s Jack Robinson. Say, Kit, don’t look so solemn. Likely they’ll know enough to give up licked without getting shot; and they’re nothin’ but Indians, any how.”

The Sun Maid came softly across and held up her little son to be admired. Her face was grave and her lips silent. All this talk of war and bloodshed was awful to her gentle heart, that was torn and distracted with grief for both her white and her red-faced friends.

But there was only grim satisfaction on the countenance of her young husband; and he turned to Abel, demanding:

“Are you sure that this good news is true? Are the soldiers coming? Who saw them?”

“I myself, through the commandant’s spy-glass. They’re aboard the ships, and I could almost hear the tune of Yankee Doodle. They’re bound to rout the enemy like chain lightning. Hooray!”

The soldiers were coming indeed; but alas! an enemy was coming with them far more deadly than the Indians they meant to conquer.

CHAPTER XXI.
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH

“Oh, Kit; I can’t bear to leave you behind! It breaks my old heart all to flinders!” lamented Abel, laboriously climbing into the great wagon which Jim and Pete were now to draw back to their old home and wherein were already seated Mercy, with Kitty’s children. “If it wasn’t for these babies of yourn, I’d never stir stick nor stump out this afflicted town.”

“Well, dear Abel, the babies are, and must be cared for. I know that you and Mother Mercy will spoil them with kindness; but I hope we’ll soon be all together again. Good-by, good-by.”

The Sun Maid’s voice did not tremble nor the light in her brave face grow dim, though her heart was nearer breaking than Abel’s; in that she realized far more keenly than he the peril in which she was voluntarily placing herself.

“Well, Kitty, lamb, do take care. Take the herb tea constant and keep your feet dry.”

“That will be easy to do, if this heat remains,” answered the other quietly, looking about her as she spoke upon the sun-parched ground and the hot, brazen sky. “And you must not worry, any of you. Gaspar says the tepees are as comfortable as the best log cabins, though so hastily put up. You will have plenty of air and the delicious shade of the trees; the blessed spring water, too; and if you don’t keep well and be as happy as kittens, I – I’ll be ashamed of you. I declare, Mercy dear, your face is all a-beam with the thought of the old clearing, and the bleaching ground, and all. So you needn’t try to look grave, for, as soon as we can, Wahneenah and I will follow.”

Then she turned to speak to Gaspar, who sat on Tempest close at hand, his handsome face pale with anxiety and divided interests, but stern and resolute to do his duty as his young wife had shown it to him. And what these two had to say to one another is not for others to hear; for it was a parting unto death, it might be, and the hearts of the twain were as one flesh.

Also, if Mercy’s face was alight with the glow of her home returning, it was moved by the sight of the two women – Wahneenah and her daughter – who were taking their lives in their hands for the service of their fellow-men.

Never had the Indian woman’s comeliness shown to such advantage; and her bearing was of one who neither belittled nor overrated the dignity of the self-sacrifice she was making. She wore a white cotton gown, which draped rather than fitted her tall figure, and about her dark head was bound a white kerchief that seemed a crown. With an impulse foreign to her, Mercy held out her hand; because in ordinary she “hated an Indian on sight.”

“Well, Wahneeny, I’d like to shake hands for good-by. There hain’t never been no love lost ’twixt you an’ me, but I ’low I might have been more juster than I was. I think you’re – you’re as good as ary white women I ever see, savin’ our Kit, of course; an’ – an’ – I – I wish you well.”

There was a moment’s hesitation on Wahneenah’s part; then her slim brown hand was extended and closed upon Mercy’s fat palm with a friendly pressure.

“In the light of the Unknown Beyond, the little hates and loves of earth must disappear. You have judged according to the wisdom that was in you, and if I bore you a grudge, it is forgotten. Farewell.”

Then the foster-mother slipped her arm about the waist of her beloved Sun Maid and supported her firmly as the oxen moved slowly forward, the heavy wheels creaking and the three children shouting and clapping their hands in innocent glee, quite unconscious of the tragedy of the parting they had witnessed.

Abel gee-ed and haw-ed indiscriminately and confusingly, then belabored his patient beasts because they did not understand conflicting orders. Mercy sat twisted around upon the buffalo-covered seat, her arms holding each a child as in a vise and her neck in danger of dislocation, as long as her swimming eyes could catch one glimpse of the two white-robed women left on the dusty road.

“They look as pure as some them Sisters of Charity I’ve seen in Boston city. And they won’t spare themselves no more, neither. Poor Gaspar boy! How’ll he ever stand it without his Kit, and if – ah, if – she should catch – Oh, my soul! oh – my – soul! I wonder if he’s takin’ it terrible hard!”

But though she brought her body back to a normal poise, her morbid curiosity was doomed to disappointment, for Tempest had already borne his master out of sight at a mad pace across the prairie.

The enemy which had come with the infantry over the great water was the most terrible known, – a disease so dread and devastating that men turned pale at the mere mention of its name – the Asiatic cholera.

When it appeared, the garrison was crowded with the settlers who had fled before the anticipated attacks of the Indians and, as has been said, every roof in the community sheltered all it could cover. But when the soldiers began to die by dozens and scores the refugees were terrified. Death by the hand of the red man was possible, even probable; but death of the pestilence was certain.

The town was now emptied far more rapidly than it had filled; and early in this new disaster Gaspar had hastened to the old clearing of the Smiths and had made Osceolo, aided by a few more frightened, willing men, toil with himself to erect wigwams enough to accommodate many persons. He had then returned for his household and had been met by his wife’s first resistance to his will.

“No, Gaspar, I cannot go. I have no fear. I am perfectly ‘sound.’ Probably no healthier woman ever lived than I am. I have learned much of nursing from Wahneenah, and my place, my duty, is here. I cannot go.”

“Kit! my Kitty! Are you beside yourself? Where is your duty, if not to me and to our children?”

“Here, my husband, right here; in our beloved town, among the lonely strangers who have come to save it from destruction and have laid their lives at our feet.”

“That is sheer nonsense. Your life is at stake.”

“Is my life more precious than theirs?”

“Yes. Infinitely so. It is mine.”

“It is God’s – and humanity’s – first, Gaspar.”

“Your children, then; if you scorn my wishes.”

“Don’t make it hard for me, beloved; harder than God Himself has made it. Do you take Mother Mercy and Abel and go to the place you have prepared. The children will be as safe with her as with me; safer, for she will watch them constantly, while I believe in leaving them to grow by themselves. Between them and us you may come and go – up to a certain point; but not to the peril of your taking the disease. The Indians are no less on the war-path because the cholera has come. Your duty is afield, guarding, watching, preventing all the evil that a wise man can. Mine is here, using the skill I have learned from Wahneenah and faithfully at her side.”

“Wahneenah? Does she wish to stay too; to nurse the pale-faces, the men who have come here to fight her own race?”

“Yes, Gaspar, she is just so noble. Can I do less? I, with my education, which the dear Doctor has given me, and my youth, my perfect health, my entire fearlessness. You forget, sweetheart; I am the Unafraid. Never more unafraid than now, never more sure that we will come out of this trouble as we have come out of every other. Why, dear, don’t you remember old Katasha and her prophecy? I am to be great and rich and beneficent. I am to be the helper of many people. Well, then, since I am not great, and rich only through you, let me begin at the last end of the prophecy, and be beneficent. Wait; even now there is somebody coming toward us asking me for help.”

“Kit, I can’t have it. I won’t. You are my wife. You shall obey me. You shall stop talking nonsense. You may as well understand. Pick together what duds you need and let’s get off as soon as possible. Every hour here is fresh danger. Come. Please hurry.”

But she did not hurry, not in the least. Indeed, had she followed her heart wholly, she would never have hastened one degree toward the end she had elected. But she followed it only in part; so she stole quietly up to where the man fumed and flustered and clasped her arms about his neck and laid her beautiful face against his own.

“Love: this is not our first separation, nor our longest. Many a month have you been away from me, up there in the north, getting money and more money, till I hated its very name, – only that I knew we could use it for others. In that, and in most things, I will obey you as I have. In this I must obey the voice of God. Life is better than money, and to save life or to comfort death is the price of this, our last separation.”

After that he said no more; but recognizing the nobility of her effort, even though he still felt it mistaken, and with a credulous remembrance of Katasha’s saying, he made her preparations and his own without delay and parted from her as has been told.

“Well, my dear Other Mother, there is one thing to comfort! Hard as it was to see them all go, we shall have no time to brood. And we shall be together. Let us get on now to our work. There were five new cases this morning; and time flies! Oh, if I were wiser and knew better what to do for such a sickness! The best we can – that’s all.”

“What the Great Spirit puts into our hands, that we can always lift,” replied Wahneenah, and, with her arm still about her darling’s waist, they walked together Fortward. It may be that in the Indian’s jealous, if devoted, heart there was just a tinge of thankfulness for even an evil so dire, since it gave her back her “White Papoose” quite to herself again.

“Well, I can watch her all I choose, and no burden shall fall to her share that I can spare her. The easy part – the watching and the soothing and the Bible reading – that shall be hers. Mine will be the coarsest tasks,” she thought, and – as Gaspar had done – reckoned without her host.

“It is turn and turn about, Other Mother, or I will drive you out of the place,” Kitty declared; and after a few useless struggles, which merely wasted the time that should have been given their patients, it was so settled; and so continued during the dreadful weeks that followed.

Until just before midsummer the nurses were almost wholly at the Fort, where it seemed to Kitty that a “fresh case” and a “burial” alternated with the regularity of a pendulum; and then a little relief was gained by taking their sick across to Agency House and its ampler accommodations. But even these were meagre compared to the needs; and more and more as the days went by did the Sun Maid long for greater wisdom.

“That is one of the things Gaspar and I must do. We must have a regular hospital, such as are in Eastern cities; and there must be men and women taught to understand all sorts of diseases and how to care for them. I know so little – so little.”

But experience taught more than schools could have done; and many a poor fellow who had come from a far-away home sank to his last rest with greater confidence because of the ministrations of these two devoted women. And at last, very suddenly, there appeared one among them whom both Wahneenah and her daughter recognized with a sinking heart.

“Doctor! Oh, Doctor Littlejohn! I thought you were safe at the ‘Refuge’ with Mercy and Abel. How came you here? and why? You must go away at once. You must, indeed. Where is the horse you rode?”

“I rode no horse, my dear. If I had asked for one, I should have been prevented, – even forcibly, I fear. So I walked.”

“Walked? In this heat, all that distance? Will you tell me why?”

But already, before it was spoken, the Sun Maid guessed the answer.

“Because, at length, through all the shifting talk about me, it penetrated to my study-dulled brain that there was a need more urgent than that the Indian dialects should be preserved; that I, a minister of the gospel, was letting a woman take the duty, the privilege, that was mine. I have come, daughter of my old age, to encourage the sufferers you relieve and bury the dead you cannot save.”

“But – for you, in your feebleness – ”

He held up his thin white hand that trembled as an aspen leaf.

“It is enough, my dear. Consider all is said. I heard a fresh groan just then. Somebody needs you – or me.”

Wahneenah now had two to watch, and she did it jealously, at the cost of the slight rest she had heretofore allowed herself. The result of overstrain, in the midst of such infection, was inevitable. One evening she crept languidly toward the empty house which had been her darling’s home and behind which still stood her own deserted lodge. She was a little wearier than usual, she thought, but that was all. To lie down on her bed of boughs and draw her own old blanket over her would make her sleep. She longed to sleep – just for a minute; to shut out from her eyes and her thoughts the scenes through which she had gone. How long ago was it since the wagon and the fair-haired babies went away?

She was a little confused. She was falling asleep, though, despite the agony that tortured her. Her? She had always hated pain and despised it. It couldn’t be Wahneenah, the Happy, crouching thus, in a cramped and becrippled attitude. It was some other woman, – some woman she had used to know.

Why, there was her warrior: her own! And the son she had lost! And now – what was this in the parting of the tent curtains? The moonlight made mortal?

No. Not a moon-born but a sun-born maiden she, who stooped till her white garments swept the earth and her beautiful, loving face was close, close. Even the glazing eyes could see how wondrously fair it was in the sight of men and spirits. Even the dulled ears could catch that agonized cry:

“Wahneenah! Wahneenah! My Mother! Bravest and noblest! and yet – a savage!”

“Who called her so knew not of what he spake. From one God we all came and unto Him we must return. Blessed be His Name!” answered the clergyman who had followed.

Then the frail man, who had so little strength for himself, was given power to lift the broken-hearted Maid and carry her away into a place of safety.