“It was well that Wawandah came,” he said, with more animation than he had hitherto evinced. “But listen, my sister. An elk, with horns like the branches of a great tree, had fallen beneath my rifle, when suddenly a panther sprang from its lair. Determined to lay its skin at your feet, I followed it. The chase was long; it lasted from daybreak to the setting sun. I knew not where I was, or in what direction I was going. Suddenly the panther crouched in a small thicket. I heard a cry. Oh, who could mistake the birdlike voice of my sweet sister. The hair on the crown of my head seemed to move. I felt my cheek white as that of a pale face—my heart was sick. As the panther took his spring I fired. Oh, had I been myself, I should have killed him dead, but fear took away my skill and I was a woman, even as I had been for many moons before, until the sister that I loved without hope brought comfort to my soul by smiling upon me under the roof of her own wigwam.” The eyes of the Sunflower bent beneath the ardor of his gaze,—her heaving bosom marked her emotion, and her hands dropped mechanically at her side. Now, for the first time, she knew that it was through his silent love for her that the generous and noble-hearted Wawandah had incurred the odium of his tribe. “Yes,” pursued the youth, “now that the panther is dead, and the Sunflower is safe, Wawandah is glad of the wound received in saving her. His step had never dared to move toward the spot where she bathed, but the Good Spirit led him, even in the guise of a panther, to behold that which he had never seen but in his dreams.” He paused; leaning on his elbow, he had taken the small hand of the Sunflower. He felt it tremble beneath the slight pressure of his. Then he continued:— “The love that filled my heart like the devouring fire of the prairie, before the good White Bear adopted me as his son, was nothing to what it is now. The Sunflower must be Wawandah’s wife or she must see him die. He will not live without her.” Never had the warrior awakened such interest in the bosom of the wife of the White Bear. His beautiful eyes spoke a language she could not resist. The deepening crimson of her cheek, the languor of her eye, and the heaving of her bosom, were her only answer. “Then the Sunflower is Wawandah’s forever,” he exclaimed, as he caught and pressed her to his heart, and imprinted the first kiss of love upon her brow. Still she replied not. She felt as if an inevitable fate was impelling both to their destruction; but there was sweetness in the thought. The enormity of the ingratitude to the White Bear did not at first occur to her. “We must fly,” she at length murmured. “The Sunflower is now the wife of Wawandah, and she must seek another home. The White Bear will be here to-morrow, and never can the guilty one he loves bear to look upon his generous face again.”