All that day I lay there, on the prairie, Saul sitting beside me, shielding me from, the sun, and giving me drops of coolness, which the Indians pressed from herbs and shrubs that grew not far away.  I was in a dream, and when the stars arose they lifted me up and bore me away.  I knew it was to the eastward.  I felt no resistance in my nature, as I always do when going to the west, either voluntarily or otherwise.  We came, after many days, to the Indian lodge.  I never saw the guard again, that I left in peace, when I was driven out to wander, because I felt wretched and lonely to be deserted for the chase by my husband.  They were carried into captivity by the hostile Sioux.  There was mourning in the lodge.  An Indian mother, whose daughter had gone with me, sat down in the ashes of sorrow, and moved not for two days; then she arose, and, scattering dust from the earth toward the setting sun, she went into her wigwam and they gave her food.

It was September before I was able to leave the place whither they carried me.  My arm was cut with the hoof of the flying horse, and when Saul found me, I had fainted; I was dying from loss of blood, which his coming only had stayed.  After I grew stronger, I closely observed my husband.

I never saw such an ache, such a strife, as week after week hunting-parties went out in the morning and returned at evening with their game.  Saul grew reserved and silent when I begged him to go, to leave me for a day.

“It is of no use, Lucy; I made a vow, and I must keep it.  This Indian blood within me must be subdued; it has met a stronger current on the way, and must mingle with it.”

He said no more on the subject, and I would not question him.  We took our last walk on the prairie.  Everything was in readiness for our departure to meet the expected United States mail-train.  We returned to the lodge, and Saul left me for a few minutes to make some last arrangements with Meotona.  An old Indian woman, whose eyes I had often noticed on me, crept stealthily in at my tent-door, and said to me in English,—­

“Let me be welcome; I come to teach you.”

I knew that among her tribe she had the reputation of a prophetess, but I had never heard her speak English.

“I am waiting to hear,” I said; and this woman fixed her sad, solemn eyes on me and said,—­

“Child of the pale man, a great many moons ago, when my eyes were bright like the little quiver-flower, and the young warriors sought me in my father’s wigwam, I had a sister.  Her name he called Luella.  The chiefs of the tribe were going for a grand hunt on the Huron.  Some pale men from across the lake came to join them.  One of them looked on Luella, and her eyes grew soft and sad.  She wrapped her blanket about her, and walked often under the stars at night.  Through the winter, she would not talk with the young chiefs; and when the leaves grew again, the pale men came back, and Luella walked again under the stars.  She learned English, and no one knew who taught her.