sang the heart of Winona rejoicing,
But gladlier still had she heard
          of the death of the crafty Tamdoka. 
The Chief will return; he is bold,
          and he carries the fire of Wakinyan: 
To our people the truth will be told,
          and Tamdoka will hide like a coward.” 
His thin locks the aged brave shook;
          to himself half inaudibly muttered;
To Winona no answer he spoke,—­only moaned he “Micunksee!  Micunksee![BH]
In my old age forsaken and blind!
          Yun-he-he!  Micunksee!  Micunksee!"[BI]
And Wichaka, the pitying dog,
          whined as he looked on the face of his master.

[BH] My Daughter; My Daughter.

[BI] Alas, O My Daughter,—­My Daughter!

FAMINE.

Waziya came down from the North—­
          from the land of perpetual winter. 
From his frost-covered beard issued forth the sharp-biting,
          shrill-whistling North-wind;
At the touch of his breath
          the wide earth turned to stone, and the lakes and the rivers: 
From his nostrils the white vapors rose,
          and they covered the sky like a blanket. 
Like the down of Maga[BJ] fell the snows,
          tossed and whirled into heaps by the North-wind. 
Then the blinding storms roared on the plains,
          like the simoons on sandy Sahara;
From the fangs of the fierce hurricanes
          fled the elk and the deer and the bison. 
Ever colder and colder it grew,
          till the frozen ground cracked and split open;
And harder and harder it blew,
          till the hillocks were bare as the boulders. 
To the southward the buffalos fled,
          and the white rabbits hid in their burrows;
On the bare sacred mounds of the dead
          howled the gaunt, hungry wolves in the night-time,
The strong hunters crouched in their tees;
          by the lodge-fires the little ones shivered;
And the Magic-Men[BK] danced to appease,
          in their teepee, the wrath of Waziya;
But famine and fatal disease,
          like phantoms, crept into the village. 
The Hard Moon[BL] was past, but the moon
          when the coons make their trails in the forest[BM]
Grew colder and colder.  The coon,
          or the bear, ventured not from his cover;
For the cold, cruel Arctic simoon
          swept the earth like the breath of a furnace. 
In the tee of Ta-te-psin the store
          of wild-rice and dried meat was exhausted;
And Famine crept in at the door,
          and sat crouching and gaunt by the lodge-fire. 
But now with the saddle of deer
          and the gifts came the crafty Tamdoka;
And he said, “Lo I bring you good cheer,
          for I love the blind Chief and his daughter. 
Take the gifts of Tamdoka, for dear