--
I wept till I could weep no more
When I heard you were going away
Far, far away!
O my heart! O my poor heart!
Heh-eh-eh-eh! Ho-o-o!_

Concealing in the grass his eagle plumes,
The patient Sioux his lonely watch resumes.
The reddening sun is low, when, far away,
He sees a moving speck. With its last ray
A handsome youth dismounts before the door.
His sister, as the custom was of yore,
Removes the body of the doe with speed,
Unsaddles, waters, pickets out his steed,
Leaving the wearied hunter to repose.
A film of smoke, dissolving as it goes,
Curls upward from the Blackfoot's lodge.

At last,
The youthful pair have ended their repast,
And reappear without, to taste the cool
Of evening. All their sportive converse, full
Of meaning gestures, doth right well supply
Its story to their unseen watcher's eye,
Who through the night his tireless vigil keeps,
While, wrapt in dreams, the unconscious Blackfoot sleeps.

At earliest dawn, in the chill morning gray,
Again the youthful hunter rides away;
And, when the sun mounts half way up the sky,
Her lover meets the Blackfoot maiden's eye.
Archly she greets him--"Laggard! why so late?
He whom you seek is gone--he could not wait!"
"But you--you told him not," the youth replies,
"Of my first visit!" In each other's eyes
They look and laugh; and in that laughter free
Dissolves the ancient, tribal enmity!
The wooing of an Indian is but brief.
He tells his tale, "My father was a chief--
These eighteen years in yonder heaven he dwells."
The maiden's heart with awe and wonder swells
On hearing that mysterious name and birth
Which mark him as a being scarce of earth.
Then, too, his gallant height and handsome face,
Equipment strange, and bearing full of grace
Ensnare her fancy.

When the bold demand
Comes from this hero for her heart and hand,
In blush and smile her answer may be guessed;
Yet, womanlike, she puts him to the test!
"Ere I consent, you must return with me
Unto my father's lodge. And first--but see
This raw-hide trunk. I pray you, creep inside--"
(All this by signs); "then you can safely hide!
I dread my brother's anger, when he hears
Our foeman asks me for a wife."

Such fears
(Prettily figured, it may be), win with ease
The youth's consent to any scheme you please;
Danger, discomfort, ridicule--all three
This gallant wooer scorns, and smil