mothers of a score of other restless young folk had
been too busy and anxious to notice when this child slipped away to
wander on the prairie.

For a brief time the weary baby slumbered against the red man's knee,
while he considered the course he would best pursue; whether to return
her at once to the family of the commandant, or to carry her southward
to the Pottawatomie lodge whither he was bound. Then, his decision
made, he lifted the child to his breast and resumed his homeward way.

But the bright head pillowed so near his eyes seemed to dazzle him,
and its floating golden locks to catch and hold, in a peculiar
fashion, the rays of the sunset. From this, with his race instinct of
poetic imagery, which finds in nature a type for everything, he caught
a quaint suggestion.

"She is like the sun himself. She is all warmth and brightness. She
is his child, now that her pale-faced parents sleep the long sleep,
and none other claims her. None? Yes, one. I, Black Partridge, the
Man-Who-Lies-Not. In my village, Muck-otey-pokee, lives my sister, the
daughter of a chief, her whose one son died of the fever on that same
dark night when the arrow of a Sioux warrior killed a brave, his sire.
In her closed tepee there will again be light. The Sun Maid shall make
it. So shall she escape the fate of the doomed pale-faces, and so
shall the daughter of my house again be glad."

Thus, bearing her new name, and all unconsciously, the little Sun Maid
was carried southward and still southward till the twilight fell and
her new guardian reached the Pottawatomie village, on the Illinois
prairie, where he dwelt.

Sultry as the night was, there was yet a great council fire blazing in
the midst of the settlement, and around this were grouped many young
braves of the tribe. Before the arrival of their chief there had been
a babel of tongues in the council, but all discussion ceased as he
joined the circle in the firelight.

The sudden silence was ominous, and the wise leader understood it;
but it was not his purpose then to quarrel with any man. Ignoring
the scowling glances bestowed upon him, he gave the customary
evening salutation and, advancing directly to the fire, plucked a
blazing fagot from it. This he lifted high and purposely held so
that its brightness illuminated the face and figure of the child
upon his breast.

[Illustration: BLACK PARTRIDGE AND THE SUN MAID. _Page 6._]

A guttural exclamation of astonishment ran from