But who will follow? Le
Balafre has no son. His oldest has ridden too many Pawnee horses; the
bones of the youngest have been gnawed by Konza dogs! Le Balafre has
come to look for a young arm, on which he may lean, and to find a son,
that when he is gone his lodge may not be empty. Tachechana, the
skipping fawn of the Tetons, is too weak, to prop a warrior, who is
old. She looks before her and not backwards. Her mind is in the lodge
of her husband."
The enunciation of the veteran warrior had been calm, but distinct,
and decided. His declaration was received in silence; and though
several of the chiefs, who were in the counsels of Mahtoree, turned
their eyes on their leader, none presumed to oppose so aged and so
venerated a brave, in a resolution that was strictly in conformity to
the usages of the nation. The Teton himself was content to await the
result with seeming composure, though the gleams of ferocity, that
played about his eye, occasionally betrayed the nature of those
feelings, with which he witnessed a procedure, that was likely to rob
him of that one of all his intended victims whom he most hated.
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