ve
been no gentler mount for so helpless a rider than this suddenly tamed
White Snowbird.

At the entrance to the village Wahneenah met them. She had again put
on her mourning garb, and her hair was unplaited, while the lines of
her face had deepened perceptibly. She had lamented to Katasha:

"The Great Spirit sent me back my lost ones in the form of the Sun
Maid, and because of my own carelessness and sternness He has recalled
her. Now is our separation complete, and not even in the Unknown Land
shall I find them again."

But the One-Who-Knows had answered, impatiently:

"Leave be. Whatever is must happen. The child is safe. Nothing can
harm her. Has she not the three gifts? The White Necklace from the
shore of the Sea-without-end?[1] The White Bow from the eternal north?
and the White Snowbird, into which entered the white soul of a
blameless virgin? Have I not clothed her with the garb of our people?
You are a fool, Wahneenah. Go hide in your wigwam, and keep silence."

[Footnote 1: Pacific Ocean.]

This was good advice, but Wahneenah couldn't take it. She was too
human, too motherly, and under all her superstition, too sure of the
Sun Maid's real flesh-and-blood existence to be easily comforted. So
she went, instead, to the outskirts of the settlement to watch for
what might be coming of good or ill. And so she came all the sooner to
find her lost darling, and she vowed within herself that never again,
so long as her own life should last, would she lose sight of that
precious golden head.

"My Girl-Child! My White Papoose, Beloved! Found again! But how could
you?"

"I did get runned away with myself this time, nice Other Mother. Don't
look at Kitty that way. Kitty is very hungry. Nice Black Partridge
Feather-man did find me, riding and riding and riding. The pretty
Snowbird had lots of wings, I guess, for she flew and flew and flew.
But I didn't see Osceolo. He couldn't have come, could he? I thought
he was coming, too, when he clapped his hands and shooed me off so
fast. Where is he?"

That was what several were desirous to learn. The affair had turned
out much better than might have been expected, but there would be a
day of reckoning for the village torment when he and its chief should
chance to meet.

Knowing this, Osceolo remained in hiding for some time. Until, indeed,
his curiosity got the better of his discretion. This happened when the
Man-Who-Kills came stealing to his retreat and begged his