a sigh.
He was dead!
The dance began again more rapid and irregularly, and the warriors shouted in chorus:
"Wacondah! Wacondah! Receive this warrior! See, he did not fear death! He knew there was no such thing, as he was to be born again in thy bosom!
"Wacondah! Wacondah! Receive this warrior. He was just! The blood flowed red and pure in his heart! The words his chest uttered were wise!
"Wacondah! Wacondah! Receive this warrior! He was the greatest and most celebrated of thy Comanche children!
"Wacondah! Wacondah! Receive this warrior. See how many scalps he wears at his girdle.
"Wacondah! Wacondah! Receive this warrior!"
The song and dancing lasted till daybreak, when, at a signal from Unicorn, they ceased.
"Our father has gone," he said; "his soul has left his body, which it inhabited too long, to choose another abode. Let us give him a burial suited to so great a warrior."
The preparations were not lengthy; the body of the Bounding Panther was carefully washed, then interred in a sitting posture, with his war weapons; the last horse he had ridden and his dogs were placed by his side, after having their throats cut; and then a bark hut was erected over the tomb to preserve it from the profanation of wild beasts; on the top of the hut a pole was planted, surmounted by the scalps the old warrior had taken at a period when he, still young and full of strength, led the Comanches in action.
Black Cat witnessed all the affecting incidents of this mournful tragedy respectfully, and with religious devotion. When the funeral rites were ended, Unicorn came up to him.
"I thank my brother," the Comanche said, "for having helped us to pay the last duties to an illustrious warrior. Now I am quite at my brother's service, he can speak without fear; the ears of a friend are open, and his heart will treasure up the words addressed to it."
"Unicorn is the first warrior of his nation," Black Cat replied, with a bow; "justice and honour dwell in him: a cloud has passed over my mind and rendered it sad."
"Let my brother open his heart to me, I know that he is one of the most celebrated chiefs of his nation. Black Cat no longer counts the scalps he has taken from his enemies – what is the reason that renders him sad?"
The Apache chief smiled proudly at Unicorn's remarks.
"The friend of my brother, the great pale hunter, adopted by his tribe," he said sharply, "is running a terrible danger at this moment."
"Wah!" the chief said; "Can that be true? Koutonepi is the flesh of my bones; who touches him wounds me. My brother will explain."
Black Cat then narrated to Unicorn the way in which Valentine had saved his life, the leagues formed by the Apaches and other nations of the Far West against him, and the critical position in which the hunter now was, owing to the influence of Red Cedar with the Indians, and the forces he had at his command at this moment. Unicorn shook his head over the story.
"Koutonepi is wise and intrepid," he said; "loyalty dwells in his heart, but he cannot resist – how to help him? A man, however brave he may be, is not equal to one hundred."
"Valentine is my brother," the Apache answered; "I have sworn to save him. But what can I do alone?"
Suddenly a woman rushed between, the two chiefs: it was Sunbeam.
"If my master permits," she said with a suppliant look at Unicorn, "I will help you: a woman can do many things."
There was a silence, during which the chief regarded the squaw, who stood modest and motionless before them.
"My sister is brave," Black Cat at length said; "but a woman is a weak creature, whose help is of but very slight weight under such grave circumstances."
"Perhaps so," she said boldly.
"Wife," Unicorn said, as he laid his hand on her shoulder, "go whither your heart calls you; save my brother and pay the debt you have contracted with him: my eye will follow you, and at the first signal I will run up."
"Thanks," the young woman said, joyfully, and kneeling before the chief, she affectionately kissed his hand.
Unicorn went on —
"I confide this woman to my brother – I know that his heart is great: I am at my ease; farewell."
And after a parting signal he dismissed his guest; the chief entered his calli without looking back, and let the buffalo hide curtain fall behind him. Sunbeam looked after him; when he had disappeared, she turned to Black Cat.
"Let us go," she said, "to save our friend."
A few hours later, the Apache chief, followed by a young woman, rejoined his tribe on the banks of the Gila, and on the next day but one Black Cat arrived with his entire forces at the hill of Mad Buffalo.
CHAPTER IX
THE MEETING
The preceding explanations given, we will resume our story at the point where we left it at the end of chapter seven. Sunbeam, without speaking, offered the Spanish girl a piece of paper, a species of wooden skewer, and a shell filled with blue paint. The Gazelle gave a start of joy.
"Oh, I understand," she said.
The chief smiled.
"The whites have a great deal of knowledge," he said, "nothing escapes them; my daughter will draw a collar for the pale chief."
"Yes," she murmured, "but will he believe me?"
"My daughter will put her heart in that paper, and the white hunter will recognise it."
The girl heaved a sigh.
"Let us try," she said.
With a feverish movement she took the paper from Sunbeam's hand, hastily wrote a few words, and returned it to the young Indian, who stood motionless and stoical before her. Sunbeam rolled up the paper, and carefully fastened it round an arrow.
"Within an hour it will be delivered," she said, and she disappeared in the wood with the lightness of a startled fawn. This little affair took her less time to perform than we have been employed in describing it. When the Indian girl, taught long before by Black Cat the part she had to play, had gone off to deliver her message, the chief said —
"You see that, though we may not save them all, those who are dear to us will at any rate escape."
"May Heaven grant that you are not mistaken, father," the girl said.
"Wacondah is great – his power is unbounded – he can do everything – my daughter can hope."
After this a long conversation took place between the couple, at the end of which, White Gazelle glided unnoticed, among the trees, and proceeded to a hill a short distance from the post occupied by the whites, called Elk Hill, where she had given Don Pablo the meeting. At the thought of seeing the Mexican again, the girl had been involuntarily attacked by an undefinable emotion; she felt her heart contracted, and all her limbs trembled. The recollection of what had passed between her and him so short a time back still troubled her ideas, and rendered the task she had imposed on herself even more
