"The Walkullas fell before us like rain in the summer months; it was as a fire among the dry rushes. We went upon them when they were unprepared--when they were as children; and for a while the Great Spirit gave them into our hands. But a power rose against us, which we could not withstand. The strange men came upon us armed with thunder and lightning. Why delays my tongue to tell its story? Fathers, your sons have fallen, like the leaves of the forest-tree in a high wind; like the flowers of spring after a frost; like drops of rain in the Sturgeon-Moon. Warriors, the sprouts which shot up from the roots of the withered oaks have perished. The young Braves of our nation lie, food for the eagle and the wild cat, by the arm of the Great Lake. "Fathers, the bolt from the strangers' thunder entered my flesh, yet I did not fly: these six scalps I tore from the Walkullas; but this has yellow hair. Have I done well?" The head chief and counsellors answered he had done well; but Chenos answered "No. You went into the Walkullas camp," said he, "when the tribe were feasting to the Great Spirit, and you disturbed the sacrifice, and wickedly mixed human blood with it. Therefore has this evil come upon us; for the Great Spirit is very angry." The head chief and the counsellors asked Chenos what must be done to appease the Master of Breath. Chenos answered--"The Mad Buffalo, with the morning, will offer to him that which he holds dearest." The Mad Buffalo looked fiercely on the priest, and said--"The Mad Buffalo fears the Great Spirit; but he will offer none of his kin, neither his father nor his mother, nor the children of his mother; but he will kill a deer, and, with the morning, it shall be burned to the Great Spirit." Chenos said to him, "You have told the council how the battle was fought, and who fell; you have showed the spent quiver, and the seven scalps, one of which has shining hair, but you have not spoken of your prisoner. The Great Spirit keeps nothing hid from his priests, of whom Chenos is one. He has told me you have a prisoner, one with tender feet and a trembling heart." "Let any one say the Mad Buffalo ever lied," said the head warrior. "He never spoke but truth. He has a prisoner, a woman, taken from the strange camp; a daughter of the sun; a maiden from the happy islands, which no Shawano has ever seen. And as soon as I have built my house, and gathered in my corn, and hunted, and brought home my meat, she shall live with me and become the mother of my children." "Where is she?" asked the head chief. "She sits on the bank of the river, at the bend where we dug up the bones of the great beast, beneath the tree which the Master of Breath shivered with his lightnings. I placed her there because the spot is sacred, and none dare disturb her. I will go and fetch her to the council fire. But let no one touch her, or show anger, for she is fearful as a young deer, and weeps like a child for its mother."