100 STORIES OF EARTH AND SKY 



sat upon the ground and toyed and played with 

 the glistening arrow-heads, plucking out those 

 that pleased her best, a bit of light green jade 

 from distant parts, a coal black point, and me ! 

 A thrill went through me as I felt the soft touch 

 of her fingers, and solemn Kanida even smiled as 

 he gazed upon her, for it was Wenona she whom 

 all the tribe held in part to be one of them, and 

 yet something far beyond. Wenona, daughter of 

 Kaniwa, the Chief, whose mother had vanished to 

 the Morning Star. Wenona, whose very name 

 signified a quivering r&y of light, the maid, who 

 saw in dreams thiligs that should happen afar off. 



"This day Wenona was playful and sad by 

 turns, and Kanida often glanced at her anxiously; 

 finally he laid his flints aside, and filling his pipe 

 began to smoke silently, as if inviting her con- 

 fidence. As the day lengthened, pulling the shad- 

 ows after it, she, crouching at the arrow maker's 

 feet, began to speak, at first in short sentences, as 

 if she read a story dimly through the smoke. 



"'They are coming, they will soon be here! 

 The Stone Giants, people from a far-off tribe, with 

 faces of a strange, dead colour. First will our 

 people send out good brave arrows against them, 

 but stone to stone the Giants shall hurl them back 

 with broken shafts, while they shall be uninjured. 



