University of Virginia Library

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The autumn passed; the cold winds came down from the North, shaking the snow from their black winds and the people of the village began to look upon Shadow Flower with awe and fear. For never a word had she spoken to anyone since the returning of the band. With a dull light in her eyes she wandered about muttering to herself: "It was summer when they left; now the prairie is so cold and white, so cold and white." Absent-mindedly she would dwell upon the bitter words, gazing beneath her hand into the cold white glare of the horizon. Then her eyes would blaze with gladness. "Shonga saba, shonga saba!" (a black pony, a black pony) she would cry ecstatically; and for one intense moment her frail frame would be erect and quivering with joy. Then the light in her eye would fade as the fires fade in a camp that is deserted; a cry of anguish would fall from her lips, her hand would drop lifelessly from her brow. "No," she would sigh languidly, "no, it is only a cloud; O the prairie is so white and cold, so white and cold!"

And the old people shook their heads and whispered to each other: "The soul of Pazha Hu has followed the summer, for her soul loved the flowers; can you not hear her body crying for her soul?"

When the warm winds came again and the hills were green, the crying of a young child was heard from the tepee of Big Axe. The simple heart of the stern warrior throbbed with gladness as a cold seed throbs with the blowing of the southwind.

But the sound of the infant's voice brought no summer to the heart of Nunda Nu. The touch of its little brown fingers stung her breasts, and as she looked upon its face, placid or expressive as its dream took form or slept, a cold shudder ran through her veins as when one gazes on a snake, for it was the child of an enemy. All through the long tedious winter a slow hate had sapped the kindness from the heart of the future mother; and when she felt the new life throbbing into form, her thoughts grew bitter. So now the unforgotten moaning of the children of her people, dying with thirst upon the barren summit, was loud enough to drown the prattle of her enemy's child which should have wrought enchantment in her blood.

One night a noiseless shadow passed among the tepees hushed in slumber beneath the moonlight. It crept up to the tepee of Muzape Tunga and crouched in an attitude of listening. The bugs chirped and hummed, the frogs croaked, the wolves howled far away; save these and a sleeper's heavy breathing there was silence.

Suddenly there was a faint sound as of some one moving in the tepee; the shadow outside arose and the moonlight fell upon its haggard face, the face of Shadow Flower. She placed her eye to a small opening in the skins that covered the poles. Now she would gaze upon the child of Mazupe Tunga!

Through the opening at the top of the tepee the moonlight entered with intense brilliance and fell upon three faces. One was the face of her once sweet dream and the face that trembled through the visions of her madness, Muzape Tunga's. One was the beautiful cruel face of her who came upon a pony white as a summer cloud that autumn evening when the gladness left the prairie. One was

a face that she had not seen before, yet her poor heart ached as she looked upon it. It was the face of his child, her child; ah, it should have been the child of Shadow Flower, she thought, and her brain whirled with sudden madness.

As she looked, the woman in the tepee raised herself upon her elbow. She gazed upon the peaceful face of Big Axe. The moon lit up her features in clear relief. Her eyes were terrible with hate, the lids drawn closely about them till they had the small, beady appearance of the snake's. Her lips were drawn tightly across her white teeth in a cold grin. Her whole form trembled as with a chill, yet the night was warm. Then she arose and with a noiseless step sought for something hung upon the dark side of the tepee. She returned, clutching a tomahawk. The light caught her whole form, till it stood out clear-cut like a statue—a statue of a prairie Judith.

Then she bent over the form of Muzape Tunga for one moment hushed with terror. There was a dull sound as the weapon entered the sleeper's skull; but more than this there was no sound, no groan. And the one who stood like a shadow without the tepee was stricken dumb with fright.

Then the woman within turned to the sleeping child and raised the dripping tomahawk; but her arm seemed to freeze in act to strike, and the blow did not fall. A strange soft light crept into the face of the woman. She lowered her arm and laid the weapon aside beside the sleeping child; then with the step of a wild cat she crept to the entrance of the tepee, and gazing cautiously about for a moment, slipped cautiously into the haze of the moonlight, and was engulfed in the darkness of the valley.

As the dim outline of the fleeing squaw mixed itself with the uncertain haze and vanished, a great happiness leaped into the stagnant veins of Shadow Flower, and her blood rushed like a stream when the ice melts with the breath of the south wind.

Even the thought that Muzape Tunga lay dead within the tepee did not quell her happiness, for she said to herself: "Now Pazha Hu shall have her warrior; he shall be all hers."

She crept into the tepee, and kneeling put her lips to the chilling lips of Big Axe. He did not breathe. She placed her arms about his body, her face upon his breast, yet he did not move. He lay quietly with the intense moonlight upon his face. She did not sob, she was even happy; for did she not at last possess that for which she had pined?

Suddenly her dream was broken by the crying of the child. She took it in her arms and pressed it to her breast, humming a low lullaby, half believing it to be her own. But the child was frightened by the strange voice and cried piteously. Then Shadow Flower thought: "It cries for its father, yet its father has gone." "Hush," she said to the child, "we will go and find the soul of Mazupe Tunga; it cannot be so very far away."

She wrapped a blanket about the infant, muffling its cries, and tied it about her shoulders. Then she went silently through the village and out into the prairie, weird with the blue haze of the moon and the lonesome cries of the wolves.

A rabbit hopped past and stopped at some distance, as if gazing in wonder at the lone maiden.

"O Rabbit!" cried Shadow Flower, "tell me, have you seen the soul of Muzape Tunga!"

The rabbit moved its long ears, awed by the strangeness of the voice; then it hopped away into the shades; the maiden followed and was swallowed by the moonlit mist.