n of her own lodge
that she had become almost a stranger in the village. It was long
since she had travelled so far as the isolated hut into which the
youth, Osceolo, had seen the Sun Maid disappear, and as she approached
it her womanly heart smote her with pain and self-reproach, while she
reflected thus:

"Has it come to this? Spotted Adder, the Mighty, whose wigwam was once
the richest of all my father's tribe. I remember that its curtains of
fine skins were painted by the Man-Of-Visions himself, and told the
history of the Pottawatomies since the beginning of the world. Many a
heap of furs and peltries went in payment for their adornment,
but--where are they now! While I have sat in darkness with my sorrow
new things have become old. Yet he is accursed. Else the trouble would
not have befallen him. I have heard the women talking, through my
dreams. He has lain down and cannot again arise. And the White Papoose
is with him! Will she be accursed, too? Fool! Why do I fear? Is she
not a child of the sky, and forever safe, as Katasha said? But the
touch of her arms was warm, like the clasp of the son I bore, and----"

The mother's reverie ended in a very human distress. There was a rumor
among her people that whoever came near the Spotted Adder would
instantly be infected by whatever was the dread disease from which he
suffered. That the Sun Maid's wonderful loveliness should receive a
blemish seemed a thing intolerable and, in another instant, regardless
of her own danger, Wahneenah had crept beneath the broken flap of
bark, into a scene of squalor indescribable. Even this squaw, who knew
quite well how wretched the tepees of her poorer tribesmen often were,
was appalled now; and though the torn skins and strips of bark which
covered the hut admitted plenty of light and air, she gasped for
breath before she could speak.

"My Girl-Child! My Sun Maid! Come away. Wrong, wrong to have entered
here, to have made me so anxious. Come."

"No, no, Other Mother! Kitty cannot come. Kitty must stay. See the
poor gray squirrel? It has broked its leg. It went so--hoppety-pat,
hoppety-pat, as fast as fast. I thought it was playing and just
running away. So Kitty runned too. Kitty always runs away when Kitty
can."

"Ugh! I believe you. Come."

"No, Kitty must stay. Poor sick man needs Kitty. I did give him a nice
drink. Berries, too. Kitty putted them in his mouth all the time. Poor
man!"

Wahneenah's anger rose. Was she, a c