But there had been a stricken, though a motionless and unobserved
auditor of the foregoing scene. Not a syllable had fallen from the
lips of the long and anxiously expected husband, that had not gone
directly to the heart of his unoffending wife. In this manner had he
wooed her from the lodge of her father, and it was to listen to
similar pictures of the renown and deeds of the greatest brave in her
tribe, that she had shut her ears to the tender tales of so many of
the Sioux youths.
As the Teton turned to leave his lodge, in the manner just mentioned,
he found this unexpected and half-forgotten object before him. She
stood, in the humble guise and with the shrinking air of an Indian
girl, holding the pledge of their former love in her arms, directly in
his path. Starting, the chief regained the marble-like indifference of
countenance, which distinguished in so remarkable a degree the
restrained or more artificial expression of his features, and signed
to her, with an air of authority to give place.
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