clinging trustingly to her firm finger,

Even as she told how she had found it,
She folded its wings against its full breast
And set it upright on her steady finger.
Medicine Man, it moved not, it fluttered not,
Though one bleeding wing hung broken.

Where it had lain between her round breasts
Its red sign stained the front of her white robe,
The mark of her soft heart of pity.

Medicine Man, the face of the Great Sachem
Changed slowly as he watched our visitor;
He looked with understanding upon her,
He marvelled at the quiet bird.
The heart of my Father, the White Wolf,
Grew tender as he studied her.

My own heart lay strange in my tormented breast
Until swiftly she turned her face from the women
Ever the grinders of the meal in our jars,
Ever the curers of the deer meat, and salmon,
The fillers and the guardians of the storehouses;
And stretching her hand toward Mountain Lion,
By strange words and by pretty sign talk
She asked of him like coaxing birds:
"Coarse meal and water. Coüy-oüy is hungry."

As a sudden wind bends a tall birch low,
Willing my man sprang to obey her bidding.
Before the approving eyes of the watching Canawacs
Never had there been a sight so fair to see,
As when, clinging trustingly to her firm finger,
The broken bird fed from her hand of pity.

I could see the deep look, the inner trouble,
The battle in the heart of Mountain Lion,
When she held the bird toward him
That it should drink, as do the wounded,
From the polished mussel shell he had brought.

He looked, not at the broken bird, as we did,
But far into the eyes of Coüy-oüy,
The Princess of the Killimacs.
Medicine Man, was it not a Brave's hour,
Was it not a Warrior's hour,
That hour in which I stood unflinching
And saw her take him from me?
I, whose heart had possessed him
Since we shot the play arrows of childhood,
And together chased the painted wings
Through the flower fields of the Canawacs.

Then came Prairie Flower,
Mate of the Great Sachem,
To lead away the mighty strangers.
For many suns and as many moons
We feasted and danced gaily.

Was I not brave to wear fine robes,
Nightly to chant boastful songs?
My breast was torn and bleeding
As the broken wing of the fire bird,
Yet many searing times
At the command of the Great Sachem
Was I made to smile in the Council Lodge,
And to dance the Love Dance of the Mandanas;
That dance that I had learned in secret
From the flying feet of my Mother,
Learned only for Mountain Lion,
For the great ceremonial of love giving.

Medicine Man, Hear me!
Not again did the eyes of Mountain Lion
Travel across the Council Lodge
To seek my eyes in understanding.
Coüy-oüy had taken his eyes;
On her face she proudly kept them,
For he saw nought but the blue mist around her,
The gleam of her hair, the red bow of her lips.
He heard nought but the luring music
Of her echo sweet voice,
And the happy song of her quilled robe
As she hourly passed among our people;
While always clinging to her breast or shoulder
Proud and fearless as in freedom,
Rode the sacred wounded bird of blood redness.

Her father homed in wigwams
Near the lodge of the Great Sachem,
Rode his hunting pony on the far chase beside him,
Sat on high in the councils of our Chieftains.

When the dancing and feasting were over
It was known through the voices of the criers
That for many moons our visitors
Would home beside our campfires,
Learning of our wisdom from us,
Teaching, where their customs differed.

The Great Sachem was swift to order,
The rarest fish from sea or river,
The juiciest of the small birds
From the snares of the children,
The tenderest fawn flesh
From the arrows of the hunters,
To be brought for the cooking kettles
Of the strangers who trusted us.

Every day I watched the slow sun,
And at night I danced with the maidens,
But no sleep came to my eyes,
No hunger came to my body.
My Mother tempted me with bits as sweet
As the Sachem had commanded for Coüy-oüy,
But my parched throat refused them in scorn,
My dry tongue found no savour in juicy fatness,
My hot hands could not place the beads evenly.

Then it was that my Mother came to my wigwam,
And closing the doorway she stood before me,
And long and long she looked far into my heart.
Deep in her eyes there gathered the black fury,
And a storm like the wildest storm
That ever twisted the cedars in wrath,
Raged in her rocking breasts
And her lightning flashing eyes.

Fiercely in the silent Canawac motion tongue,
Her look burning into my living spirit,
She made the sign of the quick kill;
And turning she slipped like a vision
From my wigwam of torture.
As she crept into the mouth of darkness,
O Medicine Man,
I knew that she had but made the outward sign
For the savage inward purpose
Long hardening in my deepest heart.

The next sun, when our mothers sent the maidens
With their baskets to the Fall nut gathering,
I kept ever close beside Coüy-oüy, my enemy,
And in my breast there flamed fierce anger,
That she had robbed my heart.

Always at the door of her wigwam,
Rocking in the sunshine of each dawning,
Hung a yellow osier basket woven like a ball,
With its ribs placed wide enough apart
To give the gifts of light and air,
Close enough to prison a flame red bird.

And there, healed of his wounds,
But forever broken for flight,
On a twig shaped and placed by Mountain Lion,
Coüy-oüy, the flame feathered voyager of air,
Sang a song filled with tears and wailing,
The cry of a broken bird heart
Pleading for wings and a mate.

The Great Spirit heard his notes of sorrow,
But I hardened my heart against the sacred bird;
For his golden cage had been cunningly wrought
By hands of such great strength that naked
They had slain the mountain lion
And taken its yellow skin for a ceremonial robe,
Its fierce name for the sign of a great deed.

Now I saw in dazed wonder
That Mountain Lion had grown papoose hearted.
He was not leading the hunters in the forest;
He was not at the head of the fishermen
Spearing and netting as of old.
He had proved his manhood in deadly combat;
He had won his name by the fiercest fight
Ever known among any of our warriors;
But now he chose to lie in his wigwam and dream,
And I knew what he dreamed, O Medicine Man!

So with soft words and pretty sign talk
I led his evil spirit to the bright late flower;
I showed her the little flitting creatures.
And when I helped her fill her basket
With sweet nuts that were greatly desired,
My ear, quick for every sound of menace,
Marked the thing the softer one did not hear.

By a slender beckoning blue flower,
I measured the distance,
And skilfully I led the other nut pickers
Far away from the spot of danger.
Then I dared her to race in turn with me
To leap the long leap across the