But when the red sun touched the tops of the far hills, another form left the enclosure of the village and took its way down the hillside. As it came nearer, a hush of awe fell upon the Omahas. The form was that of a squaw! With an unfaltering movement she approached, seeming to hover through the mist that arose from the valley. Slowly she climbed the hillside. Not a sound passed the lips of the beholders. They seemed the figures of one dream gazing at the central idea of another. The form emerged from the mist and stood, swathed in the chromatic radiance of the evening before the motionless figure of Muzape Tunga. The eyes of the woman and the chief met in unwavering stare. Had the glance of the former become vocal, it would have been a song with the softness of the mother’s lullaby, but with a meaning terrible as the battle cry of a brave. With a langorous movement the woman raised her arms, thus allowing the many-coloured skin that hung about her shoulders to slip to the ground, exposing all the dumb eloquence of her brown breasts. Out of the silence her voice broke like the voice of a sudden wind that rises in the night. “Nunda Nu [Man-Heart] fears not Muzape Tunga!” The chief saw the lithe young form, heard the soft, caressing voice and shivered with great passion. A swift smile crossed the face of the young woman, soft as a last ray of sunlight on a hill. Again the voice grew out of the hush. “The heart of Muzape Tunga is strong like his arm and kind like his eye; he will spare my people.” The chief’s great breast heaved with the pleasure of his eye and ear. “Nunda Nu has the heart of a man and the eye of a woman,” he said; “her voice is soft like the song of a forest stream; Muzape Tunga spares her people.” Nunda Nu turned her face to her village and made a signal with her uplifted hands. Soon an unarmed Ponca, manifestly a chief by his garments, was seen taking his way down the hillside. “Come!” said Nunda Nu, turning to Big Axe; “my father bears the pipe of peace; let us meet him in the valley.” Without a word the chief followed the young woman, while his warriors stared after in wonderment. In the valley, midway between the village and the camp, the chiefs met. Then both sitting cross-legged upon the grass, the Ponca lit the pipe of peace, and having puffed silently for a while, handed it to his conqueror. The sweet smoke of the red willow arose slowly over the silent three, and Big Axe stared abstractedly into the mounting vapour. The evening grew old. The sunlight left the summits of the hills and the shadows deepened. Still Big Axe did not speak, but gazed with wide eyes into the ascending cloud of smoke. The heart of the terrible warrior had grown tender; a light softer than the twilight was in his eye. It seemed that he could hear the slumberous, singing voice of a squaw and the prattle of children about the door of his lodge. There were pictures for him in the rising smoke.