The new grass was beginning to show itself along the creek. Mountain crocuses bloomed in the edge of the fast melting snow, as the white blanket gradually receded towards the tops of the high peaks under the heat of the early spring sun. Chiquita watched the beaver dams as the inhabitants industriously fashioned new homes for the next winter, cutting down the big trees and laying in a supply of willows for food and comfort. She looked toward the sun as he peered down into the deep cañons and besought the sun god to hurry Jack upon his way. It was near midday, and Chiquita sat in a little grove of piñons, watching the splashing waters and gleaming flash of a trout darting hither and thither for a morsel as it swept along in the vicious, turbulent stream. She had hung a branch of spruce buds, entwined with a vine of Kilikinnick, upon a convenient tree, and she knew that it would bring Antelope to her. She knew the symbol by him would be interpreted, "hope in peace," but she intended that his hope must result in peace. As she listened she heard a voice close beside her. She had felt for some time the forest intuition that some one was approaching, but so silently had those footsteps glided along that no sound gave any warning. "The daughter of Yamanatz is fair as the morning dove, and it pleases Antelope to do her bidding, for is not Antelope a suitor for the hand of Chiquita, and has not Antelope done many things that make him worthy of the great chiefs daughter?" "The son of Big Buffalo stands erect. He speaks with the tongue of one who is a master, one day to be chief. Antelope is brave and his prowess great enough to entitle him to the daughter of any chief." "The daughter of Yamanatz is as good as she is fair in that she speaks of Antelope in this wise, and it is a pleasure that the eyes of Antelope go thirsty and his heart hungry for the return of the love which Chiquita can give. It would be for Chiquita that Antelope would build the signal fires, that the Utes may put on their war paint and sharpen their hatchets to take the land where were the great buffalo before the paleface drove them into the deep sea where the sun goes down, and when the paleface has been driven away, then Antelope will claim Chiquita that she may sing him songs of love by his camp fire. And when Antelope is big chief then Chiquita will be the mother of many tribes, and our people will again hunt the buffalo which shall be as the needles in the pine forest, and no more shall the white man drive the noble Ute away from the paradise the Great Spirit has made for them. Hear me, daughter whose breath is as the perfume of the trailing arbutus and whose voice is like the voice of the lark. It is Antelope who speaks."