Sharp were the twangs of the hunters' bows,
And swift and humming the arrows sped,
Till ten huge bulls on the bloody snows
Lay pierced with arrows and dumb and dead.
But the chief with the flankers had gained the rear,
And flew on the trail of the flying herd.
The shouts of the riders rang loud and clear,
As their foaming steeds to the chase they spurred.
And now like the roar of an avalanche
Rolls the bellowing wrath of the maddened bulls
They charge on the riders and runners stanch,
And a dying steed in the snow drift rolls,
While the rider, flung to the frozen ground,
Escapes the horns by a panther's bound.
But the raging monsters are held at bay,
While the flankers dash on the swarthy rout:
With lance and arrow they slay and slay;
And the welkin rings to the gladsome shout----
To the loud _Ina's_ and the wild _Iho's_, [34]
And dark and dead, on the bloody snows,
Lie the swarthy heaps of the buffaloes.
All snug in the _teepee_ Wiwaste lay,
All wrapped in her robe, at the dawn of day,
All snug and warm from the wind and snow,
While the hunters followed the buffalo.
Her dreams and her slumber their wild shouts broke;
The chase was afoot when the maid awoke;
She heard the twangs of the hunters' bows,
And the bellowing bulls and the loud _Iho_'s,
And she murmured--"My hunter is far away
In the happy land of the tall _Hohe_----
My handsome hunter, my brave Chaske;
But the robins will come and my warrior too,
And Wiwaste will find her a way to woo.
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