there had been a woman, a light-haired, soft-skinned woman, among the Osages, who had kissed him and hugged him and had taught him a language that he well-nigh had forgotten.
Occasionally one of those strange words rose to his lips, but he rarely used it, because the Osages, and now the Otoes, did not wish him to use it.
The Otoes called him Little White Osage, as a kind of slur. Nobody kissed him and hugged him, but in their ill-natured moments the Oto squaws beat him, and the children teased him. The squaws never beat the other boys. Antoine, the French trader, was kinder to him. But Antoine had married an Oto woman, and all his children were dark and Indian.
"At the burnt Omaha village," had said Chief Little Thief.
Little White Osage knew where this was. The United States chiefs, by their messengers, had invited Little Thief to meet them at the principal Omaha Indian village, so that peace might be made between the Omahas and the Otoes. But the village had been smitten by a sickness—the smallpox, old Antoine had named it, and the frightened Omahas had burned their lodges and had fled, such as were able. Only the site of the village remained, and its graves.
It would be of no use to try to go with the chief's party. They would not want boys, and especially a boy who was not like other Indian boys, and bore a name of the hated Osages. Therefore, this night, in
