"Your halting speech makes me happy, Dark-Eye. Kitty and you and I; still all together, even when age shall have dimmed my sight and dulled my hearing. It is well. I am satisfied. But hear me. Herein lies the trouble: when folks are young they forget that they will ever be old. That is a mistake. One should remember that youth flies away, fast, fast. They should teach themselves wisdom. They should learn to be skilled in the things which will make them lovely when they are old. For, despite your judgment, there are some among us whom we would keep till all generations are past. Katasha, the One-Who-Knows; and the Snake-Who-Leaps--why, he is older even than Katasha. Yet there is nobody can ride a horse, or shoot a flying bird, or bring in the game that he can. He is the friend of his chief. He is the most honored one in our whole village. Why? Because he makes few promises, and breaks none. He has never lowered his manhood by drinking the fire-water that addles one's brains and sets the limbs a-tremble. He has talked little and done much. He is One-To-Be-Trusted. That was his name in his youth, when he began to practise all his virtues. The other name came afterward, because of the swift punishment he can also inflict upon his enemies. You would do well to pattern after your teacher, Dark-Eye." Gaspar listened respectfully; but this sounded so very much like the "lectures" he had received at the Fort that it had less originality than most of Wahneenah's conversations; and, besides that, he had just espied, approaching over the village street, a tall Indian leading the black gelding and Snowbird. Behind this man walked Osceolo; but greatly changed from the bullying youth whom Gaspar had met on the previous day. Whatever had occurred in the closed tepee of Black Partridge, when its door flaps fell behind himself and the lad he had ordered to accompany him, nobody knew; but, whatever it was, Osceolo was certainly--at least for the time being--a changed young person. He walked along behind the Snake-Who-Leaps in a meek, subdued manner quite new to him, but which immediately impressed Dark-Eye as being a vast improvement on his former bearing. He paused, when ordered to "Halt!" by the old man, as if he had been stricken into a wooden image, and only when requested to take the Snowbird's bridle did he make any other motion. "Why, Osceolo! What's the matter?" asked the Sun Maid, running toward him in surprise. But he did not answer, and she was hastily snatched back by the strong hand of the foster-mother. "The Girl-Child speaks to none who is in disgrace." "But I will speak to anybody who is unhappy, Other Mother! I cannot help that, can I? One day, Osceolo was all laughing and clapping; and now--now he looks like Peter Wilson did after his father had whipped him with a musket. Did anybody whip you with a musket, poor, poor Osceolo?" Not a sign from the disgraced youth.