The King s Brightest Star

The first streak of dawn was turning the sky from gray to pale pink as Star lifted his head and looked sleepily at the twelve hundred Comanche ponies stretched on the ground around him.

Farther away were many tepees made from buffalo skins, but only the wolf-dogs, curled in holes they had dug near the tepees, showed that the camp was not deserted. Star knew that the Comanche braves, squaws, and papooses would soon awaken and come out wrapped in blankets which had been woven by the squaws and dyed in bright colours made from roots and berries.

One tepee, larger than the others, belonged to Quannah, Chief of the Quahada Comanches, and Star looked at it as he recalled the story his mother, Running Deer, had told him many times while they grazed side by side or rested on the banks of the creek near the camp. Star loved Quannah, but more than all else he loved Quannah's little daughter, Songbird, for she was Star's mistress. He remembered the day when he had been too tiny and weak to stand up, and Quannah, with Songbird, had stooped to pat Running Deer's colt.

"We will name him Star," the chief had spoken. "He belongs to you, as his mother belongs to me, and as his mother's mother belonged to my father. Swift, sure, and strong, they have been worthy to carry the Chiefs of the Quahadas."

So the colt understood the honour given his mother and the honour that was to be his when he was big enough to be ridden. And the tale his mother told many times never wearied him.

"My mother told me the tale," she would always begin, "and now that she is dead I tell it to you. When I am dead, you shall tell it to other ponies, so that it may be remembered as long as Comanche herds wander over the plains.

"The squaws tell their papooses the great deeds of their forefathers, that none will forget, that the young boys may become great warriors, while the girls grow to be worthy squaws and train their own sons to live with honour. So I, too, tell the story of our part in the life of our great Chief and his Pale-face Mother, as my mother told it to me, long ago, before you were born.