They gave him their lodges, they
gave him their riches, and they gave him their daughters. Then
Mahtoree became a chief, as his fathers had been. He struck the
warriors of all the nations, and he could have chosen wives from the
Pawnees, the Omawhaws, and the Konzas; but he looked at the hunting
grounds, and not at his village. He thought a horse was pleasanter
than a Dahcotah girl. But he found a flower on the prairies, and be
plucked it, and brought it into his lodge. He forgets that he is the
master of a single horse. He gives them all to the stranger, for
Mahtoree is not a thief; he will only keep the flower he found on the
prairie. Her feet are very tender. She cannot walk to the door of her
father; she will stay, in the lodge of a valiant warrior for ever."
When he had finished this extraordinary address, the Teton awaited to
have it translated, with the air of a suitor who entertained no very
disheartening doubts of his success. The trapper had not lost a
syllable of the speech, and he now prepared himself to render it into
English in such a manner as should leave its principal idea even more
obscure than in the original.
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