Page:Bridge of the Gods (Balch).djvu/122



Io8 THE BRIDGE OF THE GODS.

After a while Cecil said, "I have told you the storj of my life, will you not tell me the story of yours? "

"Yes," said the renegade, after a moment s thought; " you have shown me your heart as if you were my brother. Now I will show you mine.

"I was a Shoshone warrior. 1 There was a girl in our village whom I had loved from childhood. We played together; we talked of how, when I became a man and a warrior, she should become my wife; she should keep my wigwam; we would always love one another. She grew up, and the chief offered many horses for her. Her father took them. She became the chiefs wife, and all my heart withered up. Every thing grew dark. I sat in my wigwam or wandered in the forest, caring for nothing.

"When I met her, she turned her face aside, for was she not the wife of another? Yet I knew her heart hungered for me. The chief knew it too, and when he spoke to her a cloud was ever on his brow and sharp lightning on his tongue. But she was true. Whose lodge was as clean as his? The wood was always carried, the water at hand, the meat cooked. She searched the very thought that was in his heart to save him the trouble of speaking. He could never say, Why is it not done? But her heart was mine, and he knew it; and he treated her like a dog and not like a wife.

"Me too he tried to tread under foot. One day we assembled to hunt the buffalo. Our horses were all collected. Mine stood before my tent, and he came and took them away, saying that they were his. What could I do? He was a chief.

i See Bonneville s Adventures, chapters xiii. and xlviii.