dominant and the future holds no terrors, and each new day and sun and
moon and procession of the stars are greeted with the joy that is born
of living and hailed as emblems of the creative force that marks and
animates the passing of the seasons.

At the end of the lines, on a slight eminence before the village, in
front of a great gathering of aged men and women and children, stood the
tall, erect figure of an ancient warrior and patriarch with long,
snow-white hair that fell over his shoulders. Like the Amazons, he was
clad in a jaguar's skin held in place by a golden girdle and clasps
studded with jewels, and wore sandals on his feet. A circlet of gold
wrought with runic symbols, to the left side of which was attached a
raven's wing, encircled his head, while in his right hand he held a
long willow staff or wand to which were attached seven eagle feathers
that fluttered in the breeze.

It was the great Sachem, the White Cloud. A hundred winters sat upon his
clear, broad arching brow, and yet the years seemed to rest lightly upon
him. His benign, beaming countenance shone with an almost supernatural
radiance that bespoke the gift of the seer. Without altering his
position, he quietly signed to Chiquita and the Captain to dismount and
approach. Meanwhile the warriors had gathered in a great semicircle in
front of them. For some time the White Cloud continued to gaze at them
in silent scrutiny, his large, dark, piercing eyes roving from
Chiquita's face to the Captain's, in the seeming effort to fathom their
thoughts and the very depths of their souls, as though to reassure
himself of the truth of his prophecy.

"It is done. You have come at last, my children--the prophecy is
fulfilled!" he began at length. Then, raising the staff which he held in
his right hand and pointing directly upward to where the eagle continued
to soar in great circles, he cried in a deep sonorous voice that all
might hear: "Behold the sacred bird, God's sign and symbol; the sacred
witness to the consecration of His chosen ones! For was it not written
in the ancient runes that, after the coming of the White Child with a
face like the sun, the ancient spirit of Hiawatha, the Red Man's
Messiah, would revisit the world of men once more upon the back of an
eagle to verify the truth of those words uttered by the White Child?

"Since the dawn of man's birth the centuries have waited for this day!
Henceforth," he continued, addressing the Captain,