Chapter 24 - Page 2

being so fair and so unknown as Inez. Though his glance wandered, for
moments, from her countenance to the more intelligible and yet
extraordinary charms of Ellen, it did not fail to return promptly to
the study of a creature who, in the view of his unpractised eye and
untutored imagination, was formed with all that perfection, with which
the youthful poet is apt to endow the glowing images of his brain.
Nothing so fair, so ideal, so every way worthy to reward the courage
and self-devotion of a warrior, had ever before been encountered on
the prairies, and the young brave appeared to be deeply and
intuitively sensible to the influence of so rare a model of the
loveliness of the sex. Perceiving, however, that his gaze gave
uneasiness to the subject of his admiration, he withdrew his eyes, and
laying his hand impressively on his chest, he, modestly, answered--

"My father shall be welcome. The young men of my nation shall hunt
with his sons; the chiefs shall smoke with the grey-head. The Pawnee
girls will sing in the ears of his daughters."

"And if we meet the Tetons?" demanded the trapper, who wished to
understand, thoroughly, the more important conditions of this new
alliance.

"The enemy of the Big-knives shall feel the blow of the Pawnee."

"It is well. Now let my brother and I meet in council, that we may not
go on a crooked path, but that our road to his village may be like the
flight of the pigeons."

The young Pawnee made a significant gesture of assent and followed the
other a little apart, in order to be removed from all danger of
interruption from the reckless Paul, or the abstracted naturalist.
Their conference was short, but, as it was conducted in the
sententious manner of the natives, it served to make each of the
parties acquainted with all the necessary information of the other.
When they rejoined their associates, the old man saw fit to explain a
portion of what had passed between them, as follows--

"Ay, I was not mistaken," he said; "this good-looking young warrior--
for good-looking and noble-looking he is, though a little horrified
perhaps with paint--this good-looking youth, then, tells me he is out
on the scout for these very Tetons. His party was not strong enough to
strike the devils, who are down from their towns in great numbers to
hunt the buffaloe, and runners have gone to the Pawnee villages for
aid. It would seem that this lad is a fearless boy, for he has been
hanging on their skirts alone, until, like ourselves, he was driven to
the grass for a cover. But he tells me more, my men, and what I am
mainly sorry to hear, which is, that the cunning Mahtoree instead of
going to blows with the