Within a few feet of the warrior lay, extended on a buffalo skin, the delicate figure of a female, whose hair, complexion, and hands, denoted her European extraction.  Her dress was entirely Indian, however; consisting of a machecoti with leggings, mocassins, and shirt of printed cotton studded with silver brooches,—­all of which were of a quality and texture to mark the wearer as the wife of a chief; and her fair hair, done up in a club behind, reposed on a neck of dazzling whiteness.  Her eyes were large, blue, but wild and unmeaning; her countenance vacant; and her movements altogether mechanical.  A wooden bowl filled with hominy,—­a preparation of Indian corn,—­was at her side; and from this she was now in the act of feeding herself with a spoon of the same material, but with a negligence and slovenliness that betrayed her almost utter unconsciousness of the action.

At the further side of the tent there was another woman, even more delicate in appearance than the one last mentioned.  She, too, was blue-eyed, and of surpassing fairness of skin.  Her attitude denoted a mind too powerfully absorbed in grief to be heedful of appearances; for she sat with her knees drawn up to her chin, and rocking her body to and fro with an undulating motion that seemed to have its origin in no effort of volition of her own.  Her long fair hair hung negligently over her shoulders; and a blanket drawn over the top of her head like a veil, and extending partly over the person, disclosed here and there portions of an apparel which was strictly European, although rent, and exhibiting in various places stains of blood.  A bowl similar to that of her companion, and filled with the same food, was at her side; but this was untasted.

“Why does the girl refuse to eat?” asked the warrior of her next him, as he fiercely rolled a volume of smoke from his lips.  “Make her eat, for I would speak to her afterwards.”

“Why does the girl refuse to eat?” responded the woman in the same tone, dropping her spoon as she spoke, and turning to the object of remark with a vacant look.  “It is good,” she pursued, as she rudely shook the arm of the heedless sufferer.  “Come, girl, eat.”

A shriek burst from the lips of the unhappy girl, as, apparently roused from her abstraction, she suffered the blanket to fall from her head, and staring wildly at her questioner, faintly demanded,—­

“Who, in the name of mercy, are you, who address me in this horrid place in my own tongue?  Speak; who are you?  Surely I should know that voice for that of Ellen, the wife of Frank Halloway!”

A maniac laugh was uttered by the wretched woman.  This continued offensively for a moment; and she observed, in an infuriated tone and with a searching eye,—­“No, I am not the wife of Halloway.  It is false.  I am the wife of Wacousta.  This is my husband!” and as she spoke she sprang nimbly to her feet, and was in the next instant lying prostrate on the form of the warrior; her arms thrown wildly around him, and her lips imprinting kisses on his cheek.