To return from this retrospective digression. Prairie–bird’s tent was divided, by a partition of buffalo skins, into two compartments, in the outer of which was her guitar, the books lent her by the missionary, a small table and two chairs, or rather stools, the latter rudely but efficiently constructed by his own hands; in the corner also stood the chest, where his medicines, instruments, and other few valuables were deposited; in the inner compartment was a bed, composed of Mexican grass, stretched upon four wooden feet, and covered with dressed antelope skins and blankets of the finest quality. Here also was a chest, containing her quaint but not ungraceful apparel, and the other requisites for her simple toilet; at night a female slave, a captive taken from one of the southern tribes, slept in the outer compartment, and the ever watchful Wingenund stretched himself on a buffalo robe across the aperture, so that the slumbers of the fair Prairie–bird were securely guarded even during the absence of Paul Müller; and when he was with the tribe, his small tent was separated from hers only by a partition of skins, which in case of alarm might be cut open by a sharp knife in a moment. There was, in truth, little fear for the security of this extraordinary girl, who was looked upon, as we have before observed, by all the tribe with mingled awe and affection. In the outer room of the two compartments above mentioned she was now sitting, with her eyes cast upon the ground, and her fingers straying unconsciously over the strings of her guitar, when she was aroused from her long reverie by the soft voice of the female slave who had entered unperceived, and who now said, in the Delaware tongue, “Are Olitipa’s ears shut, and is the voice of Wingenund strange to them?” “Is my brother there,” replied the maiden, ashamed at her fit of absence; “tell him, Lita, that he is welcome.” The girl addressed by the name of Lita was about seventeen years of age, small, and delicately formed, exceedingly dark, her wild and changeful countenance being rather of a gipsy than of an Indian character. She had been taken, when a child, by a war–party which had penetrated into the country of the Comanches, a powerful and warlike tribe still inhabiting the extensive prairies on the Mexican and Texian frontier. She was devotedly attached to Prairie–bird, who treated her more like a friend than a slave, but towards all others she observed an habitual and somewhat haughty silence. Had her fate condemned her to any other lodge in the encampment, the poor girl’s life would have been a continued succession of blows, labour, and suffering; for her spirit was indomitable, and impracticable to every other control than kindness; but as the good–humoured Tamenund had appropriated her services to his favourite child, she passed most of her time in Olitipa’s tent, and thus avoided the ill–usage to which she might otherwise have been exposed.