It was a solace to his wounded spirit; it allayed the smart of
subjection; made him feel himself a ruler in retirement, even as Gabriel
Druse was a self-ordained exile.
These two men, representing the primitive nomad life, had been drawn
together in friendship. So much so, that to Tekewani alone of all the
West, Druse gave his confidence and told his story. It came in the
springtime, when the blood of the young bucks was simmering and, the
ancient spell was working. There had preceded them generations of
hunters who had slain their thousands and their tens of thousands of wild
animals and the fowls of the air; had killed their enemies in battle; had
seized the comely women of their foes and made them their own. No thrill
of the hunter's trail now drew off the overflow of desire. In the days
of rising sap, there were only the young maidens or wives of their own
tribe to pursue, and it lacked in glory. Also in the springtime,
Tekewani himself had his own trials, for in his blood the old medicine
stirred. His face turned towards the prairie North and the mountain West
where yet remained the hunter's quarry; and he longed to be away with
rifle and gun, with his squaw and the papooses trailing after like camp-
followers, to eat the fruits of victory.
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