snow,
While the hunters followed the buffalo.
Her dreams and her slumber their wild shouts broke;
The chase was afoot when the maid awoke;
She heard the twangs of the hunters' bows,
And the bellowing bulls and the loud _Iho_'s,
And she murmured--"My hunter is far away
In the happy land of the tall _Hohe_----
My handsome hunter, my brave Chaske;
But the robins will come and my warrior too,
And Wiwaste will find her a way to woo."

And long she lay in a reverie,
And dreamed, wide-awake, of the brave Chaske,
Till a trampling of feet on the crispy snow
She heard, and the murmur of voices low:----
Then the warriors' greeting--_Iho! Iho!_
And behold, in the blaze of the risen day,
With the hunters that followed the buffalo----
Came her tall, young hunter--her brave Chaske.
Far south has he followed the bison-trail
With his band of warriors so brave and true.
Right glad is Wakawa his friend to hail,
And Wiwaste will find her a way to woo.

Tall and straight as the larch-tree stood
The manly form of the brave young chief,
And fair as the larch in its vernal leaf,
When the red fawn bleats in the feathering wood.
Mild was his face as the morning skies,
And friendship shone in his laughing eyes;
But swift were his feet o'er the drifted snow
On the trail of the elk or the buffalo,
And his heart was stouter than lance or bow,
When he heard the whoop of his enemies.
Five feathers he wore of the great Wanmdee
And each for the scalp of a warrior slain,
When down on his camp from the northern plain,
With their murder-cries rode the bloody _Cree_.[35]
But never the stain of an infant slain,
Or the blood of a mother that plead in vain,
Soiled the honored plumes of the brave _Hohe_.
A mountain bear to his enemies,
To his friends like the red fawn's dappled form;
In peace, like the breeze from the summer seas----
In war, like the roar of the mountain storm.
His fame in the voice of the winds went forth
From his hunting grounds in the happy North,
And far as the shores of the _Great Mede_ [36]
The nations spoke of the brave Chaske.

Dark was the visage of grim Red Cloud,
Fierce were the eyes of the warrior proud,
When the chief to his lodge led the brave _Hohe_,
And Wiwaste smiled on the tall Chaske.
Away he strode with a sullen frown,
And alone in his _teepee_ he sat him down.
From the gladsome greeting of braves he stole,
And wrapped himself in his gloomy soul.
But the eagle eyes of the Harpstina
The clouded face of