Take the gifts of Tamdoka, for dear
to his heart is the dark-eyed Winona."
The aged Chief opened his ears;
in his heart he already consented:
But the moans of his child and her tears
touched the age-softened heart of the father,
And he said, "I am burdened with years,--
I am bent by the snows of my winters;
Ta-te-psin will die in his _tee_;
let him pass to the Land of the Spirits;
But Winona is young; she is free
and her own heart shall choose her a husband."
The dark warrior strode from the _tee_;
low-muttering and grim he departed;
"Let him die in his lodge," muttered he,
"but Winona shall kindle my lodge-fire."
Then forth went Winona. The bow
of Ta-te-psin she took and his arrows,
And afar o'er the deep, drifted snow
through the forest she sped on her snow shoes.
Over meadow and ice-covered mere,
through the thickets of red-oak and hazel,
She followed the tracks of the deer,
but like phantoms they fled from her vision.
From sunrise to sunset she sped;
half famished she camped in the thicket;
In the cold snow she made her lone bed;
on the buds of the birch[BN] made her supper.
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