but in the very centre was an Indian boy riding a swiftly running pony. In his arms was a little girl. Songbird knew that the boy was Peta Nocona, and the girl in his arms was Preloch, the white child who had afterward been the mother of Quannah and of Prairie Flower.

"Why do the brothers of my father's mother war with us?" she asked at last, for the question had been puzzling her a long time.

The old squaw kept on with her work, as she replied, "Because they want our lands, our ponies, our grass for their own pony herds, and they want to kill all the buffalo and antelope, so there will be none left for us. Then we could not make new tepees, nor warm robes, nor clothes, nor moccasins. Our ponies would all die if the white men had the prairie lands, and the white hunters killed the game which they did not need for food. Other Indians have told us how the white men cut the hides from buffaloes that lie as thick as fallen leaves, and then leave the meat to spoil or for coyotes to eat. Indians hunt that they may have enough meat and robes to provide for their tribes. So it will be with the grass. The white men's herds will eat it all, leaving our ponies to starve."

"But the world is so big," Songbird spoke, "why cannot all men dwell in peace and share the game and grass?"

"Because the white people want to rule us," the Picture-maker answered quickly. "We lived here long before the white men came. We are the children of the Great Spirit. He gave us the land, He gave us the wild horses that we might tame and use them, He gave us the buffalo and deer, the antelope on the flats, the fish in the streams, that we might live happily. And because these things all belong to the Great Spirit, we did not kill more than we needed.

"The tribes did not quarrel with each other, for each had its own land and no one sought to drive them from it. Men were taught not to lie or steal, and a man who pledged his word was dishonoured if he broke it. But long years ago tales came to us through other tribes, of men with white faces who lied, stole, and cheated Indians who had believed in them. These white-faced men killed the game, killed the Indians, burned their tepees, then came in still greater numbers and drove the Indians from place to place, saying, 'This is our land. This game belongs to us. You must not touch it!'"

Moko paused and Songbird kept silent, fearing the old woman might not speak further, but at last she went on.

"When game grew scarce in the places where we had been driven, our warriors went in search of foods and robes for the old people, the squaws, and the children. White men, who saw them coming, did not ask why our men had wandered from the camps, but began to fight. After that day our warriors fought every white man they met. Each chief knew that unless he fought, his own tribe would be driven until it had no place to go, no game to eat, no robes for tepees or to sleep under when cold nights brought wind and snow, and soon all the Indians would die."

"My father's mother did not want to go away from us," said Songbird. "Many times he has told me she loved the Comanche people."

"I saw her grief"—the old Picture-maker spoke slowly, and now her wrinkled hand lay idly in her lap—"I heard her beg the white men to leave her with us, but they would not listen to her. So Preloch, the white squaw of Peta Nocona, and her baby daughter, Prairie Flower, went away and none of us ever saw them again. That is how the white men would treat all of the Indians if we did not fight them."

"My father tells me that his mother was three winters older than I am now, at the time his father carried her to our camp." Songbird leaned forward. Her body rested on the ground, but her elbow propped her cheek, so that she might still watch the work of the old Picture-maker. "Tell me about her, please."

Moko nodded, but her hand moved less swiftly as she began talking, while her eyes looked through the tepee opening across the rolling prairie, as though she saw once more the young son of the chief coming into camp with the white child in his arms.

"I can see her now as he rode past me. Her hair was like sunshine, and when the Great Spirit made openings in the sky so that we could see the stars at night, two little pieces must have been kept to make her blue eyes. As she grew up among us she was different, for she was as gentle as a young doe. Many times she made peace between hot-blooded young warriors who wished to fight one another. The children followed her just to see her smile at them."

A deep sigh interrupted Moko's story, and for a few seconds the old woman forgot the little girl who waited patiently.

"I remember the day the white men took her away. Dark clouds gathered overhead. Peta Nocona, our chief, was dead, but he had told us to flee to our camp in the hills where the white men could not follow nor find us. As we fled, the rain fell upon us, and Karolo, the Medicine Man, called upon the Great Spirit to send the spirits of Peta Nocona and all the other Comanche warriors from the Happy Hunting Grounds, that they might follow Preloch and her daughter, Prairie Flower, into the land of the white men and bring them back again to their own people.

"The Great Spirit will send them both back some day," Karolo said as the rain beat on his face. "He is weeping now because his children are captives among the white people."

"Then we who heard him drew our robes over our faces that none but the Great Spirit might see our grief. And for many moons the Comanches of the Quahadas kept their hair cut short because we were mourning the death of our great War Chief, Peta Nocona, and the loss of his white squaw, Preloch, with her baby daughter, Prairie Flower. Many winters have passed, but they have never come back to us."

"The snows of many winters have fallen on my head," the old Picture-maker spoke after a short silence. "I am weary and my heart is sad for my people. But I have asked the Great Spirit to let me stay until I have painted one more robe, so that you may hang it in your tepee with this one. Your children's children shall read the pictures and learn how your father, Quannah, Chief of the Quahadas, conquered the white men who robbed him of his mother and sister. After I have finished that robe, the Great Spirit will let me rest, for I am old and weary, and my children wait me in the Happy Hunting Grounds."

"I wish I could go with my father, as Preloch went with Peta Nocona," said Songbird. "I can shoot arrows as well as the boys, and Star can go as fast as Running Deer!"

"Some tribes take their squaws to help in the fight, but Quannah will not allow it," asserted Moko. "Women and children must obey his orders and stay in camp while the men go out to fight. Our chief says that the work of women is to teach children to be fearless and truthful. That work is as great as fighting. Sometimes I think it may be greater work. Preloch said that it was better to make men love each other rather than teach them to hate and kill one another. Maybe she was right, but the white men hate us and we have to save our own lives and our homes."

Muttering to herself the old woman rose from the place where she had been sitting, and as Songbird saw the thin lips tighten, she knew that the Picture-maker would not talk any more, so she slipped away from the tent and sat watching the sun drop over the edge of the world. Two white clouds closed together, and Songbird knew that the Spirit of the Sun had dropped the flap of its tent so that it could sleep. Soon the Spirit of Night would ride his big black pony across the sky and the shadow would hide everything from sight.

Somewhere in the world of darkness Songbird's father would be sleeping. Her eyes filled with tears and her lips trembled. She was so little, so afraid and so lonely.

In the big tepee of the Quahada Chief, Songbird crept to bed, and as she lay staring into the darkness toward her father's couch of skins, she heard the shrill yelps of coyotes gathering around the camp. Suddenly