The Chevalier: He will lay his hands on their heads. Glory of the Morning: He shall not, he shall not! The Chevalier: I have said that I will tell him you were their mother. Glory of the Morning: I am their mother--I am their mother. The Chevalier: And he will praise Glory of the Morning. Glory of the Morning: They are mine, they are mine! The Chevalier: I have come to take them back with me over the Big Sea Water. Glory of the Morning (The buckskin shirt falls from her hands as she spreads her arms and steps between him and her children): No, no, no! They are not yours! They are mine! The long pains were mine! Their food at the breast was mine! Year after year while you were away so long, long, long, I clothed them, I watched them, I taught them to speak the tongue of my people. All that they are is mine, mine, mine! The Chevalier (Drawing Oak Leaf to him and holding up her bare arm): Is that an Indian's skin? Where did that color come from? I'm giving you the white man's law. Glory of the Morning (Struggling with the Chevalier): I do not know the white man's law. And I do not know how their skin borrowed the white man's color. But I know that their little bodies came out of my own body--my own body. They must be mine, they shall be mine, they are mine! (The Chevalier throws her aside so that she falls.) The Chevalier: Glory of the Morning, the Great Spirit said long before you were born that a man has a right to his own children. The Great Spirit made woman so that she should bring him children. Black Wolf, is it not so? Black Wolf: It is so. The Chevalier (To Glory of the Morning, standing apart): Black Wolf is the wise man of your people. Black Wolf: And knows the Great Spirit better than the white men. The Chevalier: Indeed, I think so. Black Wolf: And the Great Spirit made the man so that he should stay with the squaw who brought him the children,--except when off hunting meat for the wigwam or on the warpath for the tribe. Glory of the Morning (With some spirit and dignity): The white man Half Moon has said that he believes Black Wolf. The Chevalier: The white man has not come to argue with the Red Skin, but to take the white man's children. Black Wolf (In his role of practical wisdom): The Half Moon will listen to Black Wolf. The Chevalier (With conciliation): If the Black Wolf speaks wisely.... Black Wolf: Neither Oak Leaf nor Red Wing is a mere papoose to be snatched from the mother's back. The Chevalier: The Half Moon shares Black Wolf's pride in the Half Moon's children. Black Wolf (Pointing to the discarded cradle-board): The mother long since loosened the thongs that bound them to the cradle-board, propped against the wigwam. The Chevalier: And when she unbound the thongs of the cradle-board they learned to run toward their father.