late war.

"Look," he said, "at the eyes of the cabins that gleam from yonder
shore. The waters roll dark under them, but the lights of the canoes no
more haunt the rapids, and the women and children may no more sit down
by the graves of the braves of old. Our lights have gone out; their
lights shine. Their lights shine on the bluffs, and they twinkle like
fireflies along the prairies, and climb the cliffs in what was once the
Red Man's Paradise. Like the fireflies to the night the white settlers
came.

"Rise up and look down into the water. There--where the stream runs
dark--they shot our starving women there, for crossing the river to
harvest their own corn.

"Look again--there where the first star shines. She, the wife of Wabono,
floated there dead, with the babe on her breast. Here is the son of
Wabono.

"Son of Wabono, you ride the pony like the winds. What are you going to
do to avenge your mother? You have nourished the babe; you are good and
brave; but the moons rise and fall, and the lights grow many on the
prairie, and the smoke-wreaths many along the shore. Speak, son of
Wabono."

A tall boy arose, dressed in yellow skins and painted and plumed.

"Father, it is long since the rain fell."

"Long."

"And the prairies are yellow."

"Yellow."

"And they are food for fire."

"Food for fire."

"I would touch them with fire--in the east, in the west, in the north,
and in the south. The lights will go out in the cabins, and the white
woman will wander homeless, and the white man will hunger for corn. They
shot our people for harvesting our corn. I would give their corn-fields
to the flames, and their families to the famine in the moons of
storms."

"Waubeno, you have heard Wabono. What would _you_ do?"

"I would punish those only who have done wrong. The white teacher taught
so, and the white teacher was right."

"Waubeno, you speak like a woman."

"Those people should not suffer for what others have done. You should
not be made to bear the punishments of others."

"Would you not fire the prairies?"

"No. I may have friends there. The Tunker may be there. He who spared
Main-Pogue may be there. Would I burn their cabins? No!"

"Waubeno, who was your father?"

"I am the son of Alknomook."

"He died."

"Yes, father."

"There was neither pity nor mercy in the white man's heart for him. You
made your vow to him. What was that vow, Waubeno?"

"To avenge his enemies--not our friends."

"