This collection of prose written by Pauline Johnson was firstassembled and published shortly after her death in 1913. 

THE MOCCASIN MAKER

By E. Pauline Johnson

With introduction by Sir Gilbert Parker andappreciation by Charles Mair. 

Dedicated to Sir Gilbert Parker, M. P. Whose work in literature has brought honour to Canada

CONTENTS

 Introduction Pauline Johnson: An Appreciation My Mother Catharine of the "Crow's Nest" A Red Girl's Reasoning The Envoy Extraordinary A Pagan in St. Paul's Cathedral As It Was in the Beginning The Legend of Lillooet Falls Her Majesty's Guest Mother o' the Men The Nest Builder The Tenas Klootchman The Derelict

INTRODUCTION

The inducement to be sympathetic in writing a preface to a book likethis is naturally very great. The authoress was of Indian blood, and lived the life of the Indian on the Iroquois Reserve with herchieftain father and her white mother for many years; and thoughshe had white blood in her veins was insistently and determinedlyIndian to the end. She had the full pride of the aboriginal of pureblood, and she was possessed of a vital joy in the legends, historyand language of the Indian race from which she came, crossed bygood white stock. But though the inducement to be sympathetic inthe case of so chivalrous a being who stood by the Indian bloodrather than by the white blood in her is great, there is, happily, no necessity for generosity or magnanimity in the case of PaulineJohnson. She was not great, but her work in verse in sure andsincere; and it is alive with the true spirit of poetry. Her skillin mere technique is good, her handling of narrative is notable, and if there is no striking individuality--which might have beenexpected from her Indian origin--if she was often reminiscent in hermanner, metre, form and expression, it only proves her a minor poetand not a Tennyson or a Browning. That she should have done whatshe did do, devotedly, with an astonishing charm and the delightof inspired labour, makes her life memorable, as it certainly madeboth life and work beautiful. The pain and suffering which attendedthe latter part of her life never found its way into her work savethrough increased sweetness and pensiveness. No shadow of deathfell upon her pages. To the last the soul ruled the body to itswill. Phenomenon Pauline Johnson was, though to call her a geniuswould be to place her among the immortals, and no one was moreconscious of her limitations than herself. Therefore, it would doher memory poor service to give her a crown instead of a coronet. 

Poet she was, lyric and singing and happy, bright-visioned, high-hearted, and with the Indian's passionate love of naturethrilling in all she did, even when from the hunting-grounds ofpoesy she brought back now and then a poor day's capture. She wasnever without charm in her writing; indeed, mere charm was toooften her undoing. She could not be impersonal enough, andtherefore could not be great; but she could get very near to humansympathies, to domestic natures, to those who care for pleasant, happy things, to the lovers of the wild. 

This is what she has done in this book called "The Moccasin Maker. "Here is a good deal that is biographical and autobiographical inits nature; here is the story of her mother's life told with raregraciousness and affection, in language which is never withouteloquence; and even when the dialogue makes you feel that the realcharacters never talked as they do in this monograph, it is stillunstilted and somehow really convincing. Touching to a degree isthe first chapter, "My Mother, " and it, with all the rest of thebook, makes one feel that Canadian literature would have beenpoorer, that something would have been missed from this story ofIndian life if this volume had not been written. It is no argumentagainst the book that Pauline Johnson had not learnt the art ofshort-story writing; she was a poetess, not a writer of fiction;but the incidents described in many of these chapters show that, had she chosen to write fiction instead of verse, and had begun atan early stage in her career to do so, she would have succeeded. Her style is always picturesque, she has a good sense of thesalient incident that makes a story, she could give to it thetouch of drama, and she is always interesting, even when there isdiscursiveness, occasional weakness, and when the picture is notwell pulled together. The book had to be written; she knew it, andshe did it. The book will be read, not for patriotic reasons, notfrom admiration of work achieved by one of the Indian race; butbecause it is intrinsically human, interesting and often compellingin narrative and event. 

May it be permitted to add one word of personal comment? I neversaw Pauline Johnson in her own land, at her own hearthstone, butonly in my house in London and at other houses in London, whereshe brought a breath of the wild; not because she dressed in Indiancostume, but because its atmosphere was round her. The feeling ofthe wild looked out of her eyes, stirred in her gesture, moved inher footstep. I am glad to have known this rare creature who hadthe courage to be glad of her origin, without defiance, but with anunchanging, if unspoken, insistence. Her native land and the Empireshould be glad of her for what she was and for what she stood; hernative land and the Empire should be glad of her for the work, interesting, vivid and human, which she has done. It will preserveher memory. In an age growing sordid such fresh spirits as sheshould be welcomed for what they are, for what they do. This bookby Pauline Johnson should be welcomed for what she was and for whatit is. 

 Gilbert Parker. 

PAULINE JOHNSON: AN APPRECIATION. 

By Charles Mair. 

The writer, having contributed a brief "Appreciation" of thelate Miss E. Pauline Johnson to the July number of The CanadianMagazine, has been asked by the editor of this collection of herhitherto unpublished writings to allow it to be used as a Preface, with such additions or omissions as might seem desirable. He hasnot yet seen any portion of the book, but quite apart from itsmerits it is eagerly looked for by Miss Johnson's many friendsand admirers as a final memorial of her literary life. It will nowbe read with an added interest, begot of her painfully sad anduntimely end. 

In the death of Miss Johnson a poet passed away of undoubtedgenius; one who wrote with passion, but without extravagance, andupon themes foreign, perhaps, to some of her readers, but, toherself, familiar as the air she breathed. 

When her racial poetry first appeared, its effect upon the readerwas as that of something abnormal, something new and strange, andcertainly unexampled in Canadian verse. For here was a girl whoseblood and sympathies were largely drawn from the greatest tribe ofthe most advanced nation of Indians on the continent, who spokeout, "loud and bold, " not for it alone, but for the whole red race, and sang of its glories and its wrongs in strains of poetic fire. 

However aloof the sympathies of the ordinary business world may befrom the red man's record, even it is moved at times by his fate, and stirred by his persistent, his inevitable romance. For theIndian's record is the background, and not seldom the foreground, of American history, in which his endless contests with the invaderwere but a counterpart of the unwritten, or recorded, struggles ofall primitive time. 

In that long strife the bitterest charge against him is hisbarbarity, which, if all that is alleged is to be believed--andmuch of it is authentic--constitutes in the annals of pioneersettlement and aggression a chapter of horrors. 

But equally vindictive was his enemy, the American frontiersman. Burnings at the stake, scalping, and other savageries, were notconfined to the red man. But whilst his are depicted by theinterested writers of the time in the most lurid colours, those ofthe frontiersman, equally barbarous, are too often palliated, orentirely passed by. It is manifestly unjust to characterize a wholepeople by its worst members. Of such, amongst both Indians andwhites, there were not a few; but it is equally unfair to ascribeto a naturally cruel disposition the infuriated red man's reprisalsfor intolerable wrongs. As a matter of fact, impartial historynot seldom leans to the red man's side; for, in his ordinary andpeaceful intercourse with the whites, he was, as a rule, bothhelpful and humane. In the records of early explorers we are toldof savages who possessed estimable qualities lamentably lackingin many so-called civilized men. The Illinois, an inland tribe, exhibited such tact, courtesy and self-restraint, in a word, suchgood manners, that the Jesuit Fathers described them as a communityof gentlemen. Such traits, indeed, were natural to the primitiveIndian, and gave rise, no doubt, to the much-derided phrase--"TheNoble Red Man. "

There may be some readers of these lines old enough to rememberthe great Indians of the plains in times past, who will bear thewriter out in saying that such traits were not uncommon down tocomparatively recent years. Tatonkanazin the Dahcota, Sapo-Maxikathe Blackfoot, Atakakoop the Cree, not to speak of Yellow Quilland others, were noted in their day for their noble features anddignified deportment. 

In our history the Indians hold an honoured place, and the averagereader need not be told that, at one time, their services wereessential to Canada. They appreciated British justice, and theirgreatest nations produced great men, who, in the hour of need, helped materially to preserve our independence. They failed, however, for manifest reasons, to maintain their own. They had toyield; but, before quitting the stage, they left behind them anabiding memory, and an undying tradition. And, thus, "Romanticism, "which will hold its own despite its hostile critics, is theirdebtor. Their closeness to nature, their picturesque life in thepast, their mythical religion, social system and fateful historyhave begot one of the wide world's "legends, " an ideal not whollyimaginary, which, as a counterpoise to Realism, our literatureneeds, and probably never shall outgrow. 

These references to the Indian character may seem too extended fortheir place, yet they are genre to the writer's subject. For MissJohnson's mentality was moulded by descent, by ample knowledge ofher people's history, admiration of their character, and profoundinterest in their fate. 

Hence the oncoming into the field of letters of a real Indian poethad a significance which, aided by its novelty, was immediatelyappreciated by all that was best in Canadian culture. Hence, too, and by reason of its strength, her work at once took its fittingplace without jar or hindrance; for there are few educated Canadianswho do not possess, in some measure, that aboriginal, historic sensewhich was the very atmosphere of Pauline Johnson's being. 

But while "the Indian" was never far from her thoughts, she was apoet, and therefore inevitably winged her way into the world ofart, into the realm common to all countries, and to all peoples. Here there was room for her imaginings, endowed, as she was, withpower to appeal to the heart, with refinement, delicacy, pathos, and, above all, sincerity; an Idealist who fused the inner and theouter world, and revelled in the unification of scenery and mind. 

The delight of genius in the act of composition has been called thekeenest of intellectual pleasures; and this was the poet's almostsole reward in Canada a generation ago, when nothing seemed tocatch the popular ear but burlesque, or trivial verse. In strangecontrast this with a remoter age! In old Upper Canada, in itsprimitive days, there was no lack of educated men and women, ofcultivated pioneers who appreciated art and good literature in allits forms. Even the average immigrant brought his favourite bookswith him from the Old Land, and cherished a love of reading, whichunfortunately was not always inherited by his sons. It was a fitaudience, no doubt; but in a period when all alike were engrossed ina stern struggle for existence, the poets, and we know there weresome, were forced, like other people, to earn, by labour of hand, their daily bread. Thackeray's "dapper" George is credited with thesaying, that, "If beebles will be boets they must starve. " If inEngland their struggle was severe, in Canada it was unrelenting; abald prospect, certainly, which lasted, one is sorry to say, fardown in our literary history. 

Probably owing to this, and partly through advice, and partly byinclination, Miss Johnson took to the public platform for a living, and certainly justified her choice of a vocation by her admirableperformances. They were not sensational, and therefore notover-attractive to the groundling; but to discerners, who thoughthighly of her art, they seemed the perfection of monologue, gracedby a musical voice, and by gesture at once simple and dignified. 

As this is an appreciation and a tribute to Miss Johnson's memoryrather than a criticism, the writer will touch but lightly uponthe more prominent features of her productions. Without beingobtrusive, not the least of these is her national pride, fornothing worthier, she thought, could be said of a man than

"That he was born in Canada, beneath the British flag. "

In her political creed wavering and uncertainty had no place. Shesaw our national life from its most salient angles, and, incurrent phrase, she saw it whole. In common, therefore, with everyCanadian poet of eminence, she had no fears for Canada, if she bebut true to herself. 

Another opinion is not likely to be challenged, viz. , that muchof her poetry is unique, not only in subject, but also in thesincerity of her treatment of themes so far removed from the commonrange. Intense feeling distinguishes her Indian poems from allothers; they flow from her very veins, and are stamped with the sealof heredity. This strikes one at every reading, and not less theirtruth to fact, however idealized. Indeed the wildest of them, "Ojistoh" (The White Wampum), is based upon an actual occurrence, though the incident took place on the Western plains, and theheroine was not a Mohawk. The same intensity marks "The CattleThief, " and "A Cry From an Indian Wife. " Begot of her knowledgeof the long-suffering of her race, of iniquities in the past andpresent, they poured red-hot from her inmost heart. 

One turns, however, with a sense of relief from those fiercedithyrambics to the beauty and pathos of her other poems. Take, for example, that exquisite piece of music, "The Lullaby of theIroquois, " simple, yet entrancing! Could anything of its kind bemore perfect in structure and expression? Or the sweet idyll, "Shadow River, " a transmutation of fancy and fact, which ends withher own philosophy:

 "O! pathless world of seeming! O! pathless life of mine whose deep ideal Is more my own than ever was the real. For others fame And Love's red flame, And yellow gold: I only claim The shadows and the dreaming. "

And this ideality, the hall-mark of her poetry, has a character ofits own, a quality which distinguishes it from the general run ofsubjective verse. Though of the Christian faith, there is yet analmost pagan yearning manifest in her work, which she indubitablydrew from her Indian ancestry. That is, she was in constant contactwith nature, and saw herself, her every thought and feeling, reflected in the mysterious world around her. 

This sense of harmony is indeed the prime motive of her poetry, and therein we discern a brightness, a gleam, however fleeting, of mystic light--

 "The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration and the poet's dream. "

A suggestion of her attitude and sense of inter-penetration lurksin this stanza:

 "There's a spirit on the river, there's a ghost upon the shore, And they sing of love and loving through the starlight evermore, As they steal amid the silence and the shadows of the shore. "

And in the following verses this "correspondence" is moredistinctly drawn:

 "O! soft responsive voices of the night I join your minstrelsy, And call across the fading silver light As something calls to me; I may not all your meaning understand, But I have touched your soul in Shadow Land. "

"Sweetness and light" met in Miss Johnson's nature, but free fromsentimentality; and even a carping critic will find little to cavilat in her productions. If fault should be found with any of them itwould probably be with such a narrative as "Wolverine. " It "bites, "like all her Indian pieces, and conveys a definite meaning. But, written in the conventional slang of the frontier, it jars with herother work, and seems out of form, if not out of place. 

However, no poet escapes a break at times, and Miss Johnson'swork is not to be judged, like a chain, by its weakest links. Its beauty, its strength, its originality are unmistakable, andalthough, had she lived, we might have looked for still higherflights of her genius, yet what we possess is beyond price, andfully justifies the feeling, everywhere expressed, that Canada haslost a true poet. 

Such a loss may not be thought a serious one by the sordid manwho decries poetry as the useless product of an art already inits decay. Should this ever be the case, it would be a monstroussymptom, a symptom that the noblest impulses of the human heart aredecaying also. The truth is, as the greatest of English critics, Hazlitt, has told us, that "poetry is an interesting study, forthis reason, that it relates to whatever is most interesting inhuman life. Whoever, therefore, has a contempt for poetry, has acontempt for himself and humanity. "

Turning from Miss Johnson's verse to her prose, there is ampleevidence that, had she applied herself, she would have taken highrank as a writer of fiction. Her "Legends of Vancouver" is aremarkable book, in which she relates a number of Coast-Indianmyths and traditions with unerring insight and literary skill. These legends had a main source in the person of the famous oldChief, Capilano, who, for the first time, revealed them to her inChinook, or in broken English, and, as reproduced in her rich andharmonious prose, belong emphatically to what has been called "Theliterature of power. " Bound together, so to speak, in the retentivememory of the old Chief, they are authentic legends of his people, and true to the Indian nature. But we find in them, also, somethingthat transcends history. Indefinable forms, earthly and unearthly, pass before us in mystical procession, in a world beyond ordinaryconception, in which nothing seems impossible. 

The origin of the Indian's myths, East or West, cannot be traced, and must ever remain a mystery. But, from his immemorial ceremoniesand intense conservatism, we may reasonably infer that many ofthem have been handed down from father to son, unchanged, fromthe prehistoric past to the present day; a past contemporary, perhaps, with the mastodon, but certainly far back in the mists ofantiquity. The importance of rescuing them from oblivion is plainenough, and therefore the untimely death of Miss Johnson, who wasevidently turning with congenital fitness to the task, is doubly tobe regretted. For as Mr. Bernard McEnvoy well says in his prefaceto her "Vancouver Legends, " she "has linked the vivid present withthe immemorial past. . . . In the imaginative power that she hasbrought to these semi-historical Sagas, and in the liquid flowof her rhythmical prose she has shown herself to be a literaryworker of whom we may well be proud. "

It is believed to be the general wish of Miss Johnson's friendsthat some tribute of a national and permanent character should bepaid to her memory; not indeed to preserve it--her own works willdo that--but as a visible mark of public esteem. In this regard, what could be better than a bronze statue of life-size, with suchaccompanying symbols as would naturally suggest themselves to acompetent artist? Vancouver, in which she spent her latter years, the city she loved, and in which she died, is its proper home; and, as to its site, the spot in Stanley Park where she wished her ashesto be laid is surely, of all places, the most appropriate. 

But whatever shape, in the opinion of her friends, the memorialshould take, it is important, in any case, that it should be worthyof her genius, and a fitting memento of her services to Canadianletters. 

Fort Steele, B. C. , September, 1913. 

My Mother

The Story of a Life of Unusual Experiences

[Author's Note. --This is the story of my mother's life, everyincident of which she related to me herself. I have neitherexaggerated nor curtailed a single circumstance in relating thisstory. I have supplied nothing through imagination, nor have Iheightened the coloring of her unusual experiences. Had I done soI could not possibly feel as sure of her approval as I now do, forshe is as near to me to-day as she was before she left me to joinher husband, my beloved father, whose feet have long since wanderedto the "Happy Hunting Grounds" of my dear Red Ancestors. ]

PART I. 

It was a very lonely little girl that stood on the deck of a hugesailing vessel while the shores of England slipped down into thehorizon and the great, grey Atlantic yawned desolately westward. She was leaving so much behind her, taking so little with her, forthe child was grave and old even at the age of eight, and realizedthat this day meant the updragging of all the tiny roots that clungto the home soil of the older land. Her father was taking his wifeand family, his household goods, his fortune and his future toAmerica, which, in the days of 1829, was indeed a venturesomestep, for America was regarded as remote as the North Pole, andgood-byes were, alas! very real good-byes, when travellers setsail for the New World in those times before steam and telegraphbrought the two continents hand almost touching hand. 

So little Lydia Bestman stood drearily watching with sorrow-filledeyes the England of her babyhood fade slowly into the distance--eyesthat were fated never to see again the royal old land of her birth. Already the deepest grief that life could hold had touched heryoung heart. She had lost her own gentle, London-bred mother whenshe was but two years old. Her father had married again, and on hersixth birthday little Lydia, the youngest of a large family, hadbeen sent away to boarding-school with an elder sister, and herhome knew her no more. She was taken from school to the sailingship; little stepbrothers and sisters had arrived and she was nolonger the baby. Years afterwards she told her own little childrenthat her one vivid recollection of England was the exquisitemusic of the church chimes as the ship weighed anchor in Bristolharbor--chimes that were ringing for evensong from the towers ofthe quaint old English churches. Thirteen weeks later that sailingvessel entered New York harbor, and life in the New World began. 

Like most transplanted Englishmen, Mr. Bestman cut himselfcompletely off from the land of his fathers; his interests andhis friends henceforth were all in the country of his adoption, and he chose Ohio as a site for his new home. He was a man ofvast peculiarities, prejudices and extreme ideas--a man ofcontradictions so glaring that even his own children neverunderstood him. He was a very narrow religionist, of the typethat say many prayers and quote much Scripture, but he beat hischildren--both girls and boys--so severely that outsiders wereat times compelled to interfere. For years these unfortunatechildren carried the scars left on their backs by the thongs ofcat-o'-nine-tails when he punished them for some slight misdemeanor. They were all terrified at him, all obeyed him like soldiers, butnone escaped his severity. The two elder ones, a boy and a girl, had married before they left England. The next girl married inOhio, and the boys drifted away, glad to escape from a parentaltyranny that made home anything but a desirable abiding-place. Finally but two remained of the first family--Lydia and her sisterElizabeth, a most lovable girl of seventeen, whose beauty ofcharacter and self-sacrificing heart made the one bright memorythat remained with these scattered fledglings throughout theirentire lives. 

The lady who occupied the undesirable position of stepmother tothese unfortunate children was of the very cold and chilling typeof Englishwoman, more frequently met with two generations ago thanin this age. She simply let her husband's first family alone. Shetook no interest in them, neglected them absolutely, but in herneglect was far kinder and more humane than their own father. Yetshe saw that all the money, all the pretty clothes, all thedainties, went to her own children. 

Perhaps the reader will think these unpleasant characteristics of aharsh father and a self-centred stepmother might better be omittedfrom this narrative, particularly as death claimed these two manyyears ago; but in the light of after events, it is necessary toreveal what the home environment of these children had been, howlittle of companionship or kindness or spoken love had enteredtheir baby lives. The absence of mother kisses, of fathercomradeship, of endeavor to understand them individually, to probetheir separate and various dispositions--things so essential tothe development of all that is best in a child--went far towardsgoverning their later actions in life. It drove the unselfish, sweet-hearted Elizabeth to a loveless marriage; it flung poor, little love-hungry Lydia into alien but, fortunately, loyal andnoble arms. Outsiders said, "What strange marriages!" But Lydia, atleast, married where the first real kindness she had ever knowncalled to her, and not one day of regret for that marriage everentered into her life. 

It came about so strangely, so inevitably, from such a tinysource, that it is almost incredible. 

One day the stepmother, contrary to her usual custom, went into thekitchen and baked a number of little cakelets, probably what wewould call cookies. For what sinister reason no one could divine, but she counted these cakes as she took them from the baking-pansand placed them in the pantry. There were forty-nine, all told. That evening she counted them again; there were forty-eight. Then she complained to her husband that one of the children hadevidently stolen a cake. (In her mind the two negro servantsemployed in the house did not merit the suspicion. ) Mr. Bestmaninquired which child was fond of the cakes. Mrs. Bestman repliedthat she did not know, unless it was Lydia, who always liked them. 

Lydia was called. Her father, frowning, asked if she had taken thecake. The child said no. 

"You are not telling the truth, " Mr. Bestman shouted, as the poorlittle downtrodden girl stood half terrified, consequently halfguilty-mannered, before him. 

"But I am truthful, " she said. "I know nothing of the cake. "

"You are not truthful. You stole it--you know you did. You shall bepunished for this falsehood, " he stormed, and reached for thecat-o'-nine-tails. 

The child was beaten brutally and sent to her room until she couldtell the truth. When she was released she still held that she hadnot taken the cooky. Another beating followed, then a third, whenfinally the stepmother interfered and said magnanimously:

"Don't whip her any more; she has been punished enough. " And onceduring one of the beatings she protested, saying, "Don't strike thechild _on the head_ in that way. "

But the iron had entered into Lydia's sister's soul. The injusticeof it all drove gentle Elizabeth's gentleness to the winds. 

"Liddy darling, " she said, taking the thirteen-year-old girl-childinto her strong young arms, "_I_ know truth when I hear it. _You_ never stole that cake. "

"I didn't, " sobbed the child, "I didn't. "

"And you have been beaten three times for it!" And the sweet youngmouth hardened into lines that were far too severe for a girl ofseventeen. Then: "Liddy, do you know that Mr. Evans has asked me tomarry him?"

"Mr. Evans!" exclaimed the child. "Why, you can't marry _him_, 'Liza! He's ever so old, and he lives away up in Canada, among theIndians. "

"That's one of the reasons that I should like to marry him, " saidElizabeth, her young eyes starry with zeal. "I want to work amongthe Indians, to help in Christianizing them, to--oh! just to help. "

"But Mr. Evans is so _old_, " reiterated Lydia. 

"Only thirty, " answered the sister; "and he is such a splendidmissionary, dear. "

Love? No one talked of love in that household except thecontradictory father, who continually talked of the love of God, but forgot to reflect that love towards his own children. 

Human love was considered a non-essential in that family. Beautiful-spirited Elizabeth had hardly heard the word. Even Mr. Evans had not made use of it. He had selected her as his wife morefor her loveliness of character than from any personal attraction, and she in her untaught womanhood married him, more for the reasonthat she desired to be a laborer in Christ's vineyard than becauseof any wish to be the wife of this one man. 

But after the marriage ceremony, this gentle girl looked boldlyinto her father's eyes and said:

"I am going to take Liddy with me into the wilds of Canada. "

"Well, well, well!" said her father, English-fashion. "If she wantsto go, she may. "

Go? The child fairly clung to the fingers of this saviour-sister--thepoor little, inexperienced, seventeen-year-old bride who was givingup her youth and her girlhood to lay it all upon the shrine ofendeavour to bring the radiance of the Star that shone aboveBethlehem to reflect its glories upon a forest-bred people of theNorth!

It was a long, strange journey that the bride and her little sistertook. A stage coach conveyed them from their home in Ohio to Erie, Pennsylvania, where they went aboard a sailing vessel bound forBuffalo. There they crossed the Niagara River, and at Chippewa, onthe Canadian side, again took a stage coach for the village ofBrantford, sixty miles west. 

At this place they remained over night, and the following day Mr. Evans' own conveyance arrived to fetch them to the Indian Reserve, ten miles to the southeast. 

In after years little Lydia used to tell that during that entiredrive she thought she was going through an English avenue leadingup to some great estate, for the trees crowded up close to theroadway on either side, giant forest trees--gnarled oaks, singingfirs, jaunty maples, graceful elms--all stretching their branchesoverhead. But the "avenue" seemed endless. "When do we come to thehouse?" she asked, innocently. "This lane is very long. "

But it was three hours, over a rough corduroy road, before thelittle white frame parsonage lifted its roof through the forest, its broad verandahs and green outside shutters welcoming thetravellers with an atmosphere of home at last. 

As the horses drew up before the porch the great front door wasnoiselessly opened and a lad of seventeen, lithe, clean-limbed, erect, copper-colored, ran swiftly down the steps, lifted his hat, smiled, and assisted the ladies to alight. The boy was Indian tothe finger-tips, with that peculiar native polish and courtesy, that absolute ease of manner and direction of glance, possessedonly by the old-fashioned type of red man of this continent. The missionary introduced him as "My young friend, the churchinterpreter, Mr. George Mansion, who is one of our household. "(Mansion, or "Grand Mansion, " is the English meaning of this youngMohawk's native name. )

The entire personality of the missionary seemed to undergo a changeas his eyes rested on this youth. His hitherto rather stiltedmanner relaxed, his eyes softened and glowed, he invited confidencerather than repelled it; truly his heart was bound up with theseforest people; he fairly exhaled love for them with every breath. He was a man of marked shyness, and these silent Indians made himforget this peculiarity of which he was sorrowfully conscious. Itwas probably this shyness that caused him to open the door and turnto his young wife with the ill-selected remark: "Welcome home, madam. "

_Madam_! The little bride was chilled to the heart with the austereword. She hurried within, followed by her wondering child-sister, as soon as possible sought her room, then gave way to a storm oftears. 

"Don't mind me, Liddy, " she sobbed. "There's nothing wrong; we'llbe happy enough here, only I think I looked for a little--petting. "

With a wisdom beyond her years, Lydia did not reply, but went tothe window and gazed absently at the tiny patch of flowers beyondthe door--the two lilac trees in full blossom, the thread ofglistening river, and behind it all, the northern wilderness. Justbelow the window stood the missionary and the Indian boy talkingeagerly. 

"Isn't George Mansion _splendid_!" said the child. 

"You must call him Mr. Mansion; be very careful about the _Mister_, Liddy dear, " said her sister, rising and drying her eyes bravely. "I have always heard that the Indians treat one just as they aretreated by one. Respect Mr. Mansion, treat him as you would treat acity gentleman. Be sure he will gauge his deportment by ours. Yes, dear, he _is_ splendid. I like him already. "

"Yes, 'Liza, so do I, and he _is_ a gentleman. He looks it and actsit. I believe he _thinks_ gentlemanly things. "

Elizabeth laughed. "You dear little soul!" she said. "I know whatyou mean, and I agree with you. "

That laugh was all that Lydia wanted to hear in this world, andpresently the two sisters, with arms entwined, descended thestairway and joined in the conversation between Mr. Evans and youngGeorge Mansion. 

"Mrs. Evans, " said the boy, addressing her directly for the firsttime, "I hoped you were fond of game. Yesterday I hunted; it waspartridge I got, and one fine deer. Will you offer me thecompliment of having some for dinner to-night?"

His voice was low and very distinct, his accent and expressionsvery marked as a foreigner to the tongue, but his English wasperfect. 

"Indeed I shall, Mr. Mansion, " smiled the girl-bride, "but I'mafraid that I don't know how to cook it. "

"We have an excellent cook, " said Mr. Evans. "She has been withGeorge and me ever since I came here. George is a splendid shot, and keeps her busy getting us game suppers. "

Meanwhile Lydia had been observing the boy. She had never seen anIndian, consequently was trying to reform her ideas regardingthem. She had not expected to see anything like this self-poised, scrupulously-dressed, fine-featured, dark stripling. She thoughtall Indians wore savage-looking clothes, had fierce eyes and stern, set mouths. This boy's eyes were narrow and shrewd, but warm andkindly, his lips were like Cupid's bow, his hands were narrower, smaller, than her own, but the firmness of those slim fingers, thepower in those small palms, as he had helped her from the carriage, remained with her through all the years to come. 

That evening at supper she noted his table deportment; it wascorrect in every detail. He ate leisurely, silently, gracefully;his knife and fork never clattered, his elbows never were inevidence, he made use of the right plates, spoons, forks, knives;he bore an ease, an unconsciousness of manner that amazed her. Themissionary himself was a stiff man, and his very shyness made himangular. Against such a setting young Mansion gleamed like a browngem. 

 * * * * *

For seven years life rolled slowly by. At times Lydia went to visither two other married sisters, sometimes she remained for weekswith a married brother, and at rare intervals made brief trips toher father's house; but she never received a penny from her strangeparent, and knew of but one home which was worthy the name. Thatwas in the Canadian wilderness where the Indian Mission held outits arms to her, and the beloved sister made her more welcome thanwords could imply. Four pretty children had come to grace thisforest household, where young George Mansion, still the veriestright hand of the missionary, had grown into a magnificent typeof Mohawk manhood. These years had brought him much, and he hadaccomplished far more than idle chance could ever throw in hisway. He had saved his salary that he earned as interpreter in thechurch, and had purchased some desirable property, a beautifulestate of two hundred acres, upon which he some day hoped to builda home. He had mastered six Indian languages, which, with hisknowledge of English and his wonderful fluency in his own tribalMohawk, gave him command of eight tongues, an advantage which soonbrought him the position of Government interpreter in the Councilof the great "Six Nations, " composing the Iroquois race. Added tothis, through the death of an uncle he came into the younger titleof his family, which boasted blood of two noble lines. His father, speaker of the Council, held the elder title, but that did notlessen the importance of young George's title of chief. 

Lydia never forgot the first time she saw him robed in the fullcostume of his office. Hitherto she had regarded him through allher comings and goings as her playmate, friend and boon companion;he had been to her something that had never before entered herlife--he had brought warmth, kindness, fellowship and a peculiarconfidential humanity that had been entirely lacking in the chillEnglish home of her childhood. But this day, as he stood besidehis veteran father, ready to take his place among the chiefs ofthe Grand Council, she saw revealed another phase of his life andcharacter; she saw that he was destined to be a man among men, andfor the first time she realized that her boy companion had gone alittle beyond her, perhaps a little above her. They were a strangepair as they stood somewhat apart, unconscious of the picture theymade. She, a gentle-born, fair English girl of twenty, her simpleblue muslin frock vying with her eyes in color. He, tawny skinned, lithe, straight as an arrow, the royal blood of generations ofchiefs and warriors pulsing through his arteries, his clingingbuckskin tunic and leggings fringed and embroidered with countlessquills, and endless stitches of colored moosehair. From his small, neat moccasins to his jet black hair tipped with an eagle plume hewas every inch a man, a gentleman, a warrior. 

But he was approaching her with the same ease with which he worehis ordinary "white" clothes--garments, whether buckskin orbroadcloth, seemed to make but slight impression on him. 

"Miss Bestman, " he said, "I should like you to meet my mother andfather. They are here, and are old friends of your sister and Mr. Evans. My mother does not speak English, but she knows you are myfriend. "

And presently Lydia found herself shaking hands with the elderchief, speaker of the council, who spoke English rather well, andwith a little dark woman folded within a "broadcloth" and wearingthe leggings, moccasins and short dress of her people. A curiousfeeling of shyness overcame the girl as her hand met that ofGeorge Mansion's mother, who herself was the most retiring, mostthoroughly old-fashioned woman of her tribe. But Lydia felt thatshe was in the presence of one whom the young chief held far andaway as above himself, as above her, as the best and greatest womanof his world; his very manner revealed it, and Lydia honored himwithin her heart at that moment more than she had ever donebefore. 

But Chief George Mansion's mother, small and silent through longhabit and custom, had acquired a certain masterful dignity of herown, for within her slender brown fingers she held a power that noman of her nation could wrest from her. She was "Chief Matron" ofher entire blood relations, and commanded the enviable positionof being the one and only person, man or woman, who could appointa chief to fill the vacancy of one of the great Mohawk law-makerswhose seat in Council had been left vacant when the voice of theGreat Spirit called him to the happy hunting grounds. Lydia hadheard of this national honor which was the right and title of thisfrail little moccasined Indian woman with whom she was shakinghands, and the thought flashed rapidly through her girlish mind:"Suppose some _one_ lady in England had the marvellous power ofappointing who the member should be in the British House of Lordsor Commons. _Wouldn't_ Great Britain honor and tremble before her?"

And here was Chief George Mansion's silent, unpretentious littlemother possessing all this power among her people, and she, LydiaBestman, was shaking hands with her! It seemed very marvellous. 

But that night the power of this same slender Indian mother wasbrought vividly before her when, unintentionally, she overheardyoung George say to the missionary:

"I almost lost my new title to-day, after you and the ladies hadleft the Council. "

"Why, George boy!" exclaimed Mr. Evans. "What have you done?"

"Nothing, it seems, except to be successful. The Council objectedto my holding the title of chief and having a chief's vote in theaffairs of the people, and at the same time being Governmentinterpreter. They said it would give me too much power to retainboth positions. I must give up one--my title or my Governmentposition. "

"What did you do?" demanded Mr. Evans, eagerly. 

"Nothing, again, " smiled the young chief. "But my mother didsomething. She took the floor of the Council, and spoke for fortyminutes. She said I must hold the positions of chief which she hadmade for me, as well as of interpreter which I had made for myself;that if the Council objected, she would forever annul the chief'stitle in her own family; she would never appoint one in my place, and that we proud, arrogant Mohawks would then have only eightrepresentatives in Council--only be on a level with, as sheexpressed it, 'those dogs of Senecas. ' Then she clutched herbroadcloth about her, turned her back on us all, and left theCouncil. "

"What did the Council do?" gasped Mr. Evans. 

"Accepted me as chief and interpreter, " replied the young man, smiling. "There was nothing else to do. "

"Oh, you royal woman! You loyal, loyal mother!" cried Lydia toherself. "How I love you for it!"

Then she crept away just as Mr. Evans had sprung forward with bothhands extended towards the young chief, his eyes beaming withalmost fatherly delight. 

Unconsciously to herself, the English girl's interest in the youngchief had grown rapidly year after year. She was also unconsciousof his aim at constant companionship with herself. His devotion toher sister, whose delicate health alarmed them all, more and more, as time went on, was only another royal road to Lydia's heart. Elizabeth was becoming frail, shadowy, her appetite was fitful, hereyes larger and more wistful, her fingers smaller and weaker. Noone seemed to realize the insidious oncreepings of "the white man'sdisease, " consumption, that was paling Elizabeth's fine Englishskin, heightening her glorious English color, sapping her delicateEnglish veins. Only young George would tell himself over and over:"Mrs. Evans is going away from us some day, and Lydia will be leftwith no one in the world but me--no one but me to understand--orto--care. "

So he scoured the forest for dainties, wild fruits, game, flowers, to tempt the appetite and the eye of the fading wife of the manwho had taught him all the English and the white man's etiquettethat he had ever mastered. Night after night he would return fromday-long hunting trips, his game-bag filled with delicate quail, rare woodcock, snowy-breasted partridge, and when the illusiveappetite of the sick woman could be coaxed to partake of a morsel, he felt repaid for miles of tramping through forest trails, forhours of search and skill. 

PART II. 

Perhaps it was this grey shadow stealing on the forest mission, thethought of the day when that beautiful mothering sister would leavehis little friend Lydia alone with a bereft man and four smallchildren, or perhaps it was a yet more personal note in his lifethat brought George Mansion to the realization of what this girlhad grown to be to him. 

Indian-wise, his parents had arranged a suitable marriage for him, selecting a girl of his own tribe, of the correct clan to mate withhis own, so that the line of blood heritage would be intact, andthe sons of the next generation would be of the "Blood Royal, "qualified by rightful lineage to inherit the title of chief. 

This Mohawk girl was attractive, young, and had a partial Englisheducation. Her parents were fairly prosperous, owners of manyacres, and much forest and timber country. The arrangement wasregarded as an ideal one--the young people as perfectly anddiplomatically mated as it was possible to be; but when his parentsapproached the young chief with the proposition, he met it withinstant refusal. 

"My father, my mother, " he begged, "I ask you to forgive me thisone disobedience. I ask you to forgive that I have, amid my fightand struggle for English education, forgotten a single custom of mypeople. I have tried to honor all the ancient rules and usages ofmy forefathers, but I forgot this one thing, and I cannot, cannot doit! My wife I must choose for myself. "

"You will marry--whom, then?" asked the old chief. 

"I have given no thought to it--yet, " he faltered. 

"Yes, " said his mother, urged by the knowing heart of a woman, "yes, George, you have thought of it. "

"Only this hour, " he answered, looking directly into his mother'seyes. "Only now that I see you want me to give my life to someoneelse. But my life belongs to the white girl, Mrs. Evans' sister, ifshe will take it. I shall offer it to her to-morrow--to-day. "

His mother's face took on the shadow of age. "You would marry a_white_ girl?" she exclaimed, incredulously. 

"Yes, " came the reply, briefly, decidedly. 

"But your children, your sons and hers--they could never hold thetitle, never be chief, " she said, rising to her feet. 

He winced. "I know it. I had not thought of it before--but I knowit. Still, I would marry her. "

"But there would be no more chiefs of the Grand Mansion name, "cut in his father. "The title would go to your aunt's sons. Sheis a Grand Mansion no longer; she, being married, is merely aStraight-Shot, her husband's name. The Straight-Shots never hadnoble blood, never wore a title. Shall our family title go toa _Straight-Shot_?" and the elder chief mouthed the namecontemptuously. 

Again the boy winced. The hurt of it all was sinking in--he hatedthe Straight-Shots, he loved his own blood and bone. With lightningrapidity he weighed it all mentally, then spoke: "Perhaps the whitegirl will not marry me, " he said slowly, and the thought of itdrove the dark red from his cheeks, drove his finger-nails into hispalms. 

"Then, then you will marry Dawendine, our choice?" cried hismother, hopefully. 

"I shall marry no one but the white girl, " he answered, with setlips. "If she will not marry me, I shall never marry, so theStraight-Shots will have our title, anyway. "

The door closed behind him. It was as if it had shut foreverbetween him and his own. 

But even with this threatened calamity looming before her, the oldIndian mother's hurt heart swelled with a certain pride in hiswilful actions. 

"What bravery!" she exclaimed. "What courage to hold to hisown choice! What a _man_!"

"Yes, " half bemoaned his father, "he is a red man through andthrough. He defies his whole nation in his fearlessness, hislawlessness. Even I bow to his bravery, his self-will, but thatbravery is hurting me here, here!" and the ancient chief laid hishand above his heart. 

There was no reply to be made by the proud though pained mother. She folded her "broadcloth" about her, filled her small carved pipeand sat for many hours smoking silently, silently, silently. Nowand again she shook her head mournfully, but her dark eyes wouldflash at times with an emotion that contradicted her dejectedattitude. It was an emotion born of self-exaltation, for had shenot mothered a _man_?--albeit that manhood was revealing itself inscorning the traditions and customs of her ancient race. 

And young George was returning from his father's house to theMission with equally mixed emotions. He knew he had dealt an almostunforgivable blow to those beloved parents whom he had honored andobeyed from his babyhood. Once he almost turned back. Then a visionarose of a fair young English girl whose unhappy childhood he hadlearned of years ago, a sweet, homeless face of great beauty, lipsthat were made for love they had never had, eyes that had alreadyknown more of tears than they should have shed in a lifetime. Suppose some other youth should win this girl away from him?Already several of the young men from the town drove over morefrequently than they had cause to. Only the week before he hadfound her seated at the little old melodeon playing and singing aduet with one of these gallants. He locked his teeth together andstrode rapidly through the forest path, with the first fullrealization that she was the only woman in all the world for him. 

Some inevitable force seemed to be driving himtowards--circumstances seemed to pave the way to--their ultimateunion; even now chance placed her in the path, literally, for as hethreaded his way uphill, across the open, and on to the little logbridge which crossed the ravine immediately behind the Mission, hesaw her standing at the further side, leaning upon the unpeeledsapling which formed the bridge guard. She was looking into thetiny stream beneath. He made no sound as he approached. Generationsof moccasin-shod ancestors had made his own movements swift andsilent. Notwithstanding this, she turned, and, with a brightgirlish smile, she said:

"I knew you were coming, Chief. "

"Why? How?" he asked, accepting his new title from her with agraceful indifference almost beyond his four and twenty years. 

"I can hardly say just how--but--" she ended with only a smile. Fora full minute he caught and held her glance. She seemed unable tolook away, but her grave, blue English eyes were neither shy norconfident. They just seemed to answer his--then, "Miss Bestman, will you be my wife?" he asked gently. She wasneither surprised nor dismayed, only stood silent, as if she hadforgotten the art of speech. "You knew I should ask this some day, "he continued, rather rapidly. "This is the day. "

"I did not really know--I don't know how I feel--" she began, faltering. 

"I did not know how I felt, either, until an hour ago, " heexplained. "When my father and my mother told me they had arrangedmy marriage with--"

"With whom?" she almost demanded. 

"A girl of my own people, " he said, grudgingly. "A girl I honor andrespect, but--"

"But what?" she said weakly, for the mention of his possiblemarriage with another had flung her own feelings into her veryface. 

"But unless you will be my wife, I shall never marry. " He foldedhis arms across his chest as he said it--the very action expressedfinality. For a second he stood erect, dark, slender, lithe, immovable, then with sudden impulse he held out one hand to her andspoke very quietly. "I love you, Lydia. Will you come to me?"

"Yes, " she answered clearly. "I will come. "

He caught her hands very tightly, bending his head until his fineface rested against her hair. She knew then that she had loved himthrough all these years, and that come what might, she would lovehim through all the years to be. 

That night she told her frail and fading sister, whom she foundalone resting among her pillows. 

"'Liza dear, you are crying, " she half sobbed in alarm, as the greattears rolled slowly down the wan cheeks. "I have made you unhappy, and you are ill, too. Oh, how selfish I am! I did not think thatperhaps it might distress you. "

"Liddy, Liddy darling, these are the only tears of joy that I haveever shed!" cried Elizabeth. "Joy, joy, girlie! I have wished thisto come before I left you, wished it for years. I love GeorgeMansion better than I ever loved brother of mine. Of all the worldI should have chosen him for your husband. Oh! I am happy, happy, child, and you will be happy with him, too. "

And that night Lydia Bestman laid her down to rest, with her heartknowing the greatest human love that had ever entered into herlife. 

Mr. Evans was almost beside himself with joyousness when the youngpeople rather shyly confessed their engagement to him. He wasdeeply attached to his wife's young sister, and George Mansion hadbeen more to him than many a man's son ever is. Seemingly cold andundemonstrative, this reserved Scotch missionary had given all hisheart and life to the Indians, and this one boy was the apple ofhis eye. Far-sighted and cautious, he saw endless trouble shadowingthe young lovers--opposition to the marriage from both sides of thehouse. He could already see Lydia's family smarting under theseeming disgrace of her marriage to an Indian; he could see George'sfamily indignant and hurt to the core at his marriage with a whitegirl; he could see how impossible it would be for Lydia's people toever understand the fierce resentment of the Indian parents thatthe family title could never continue under the family name. Hecould see how little George's people would ever understand the"white" prejudice against them. But the good man kept his owncounsel, determining only that when the war did break out, he wouldstand shoulder to shoulder with these young lovers and be theirfriend and helper when even their own blood and kin should cut themoff. 

 * * * * *

It was two years before this shy and taciturn man fully realizedwhat the young chief and the English girl really were to him, foraffliction had laid a heavy hand on his heart. First, his gentleand angel-natured wife said her long, last good-night to him. Thenan unrelenting scourge of scarlet fever swept three of his childreninto graves. Then the eldest, just on the threshold of sweet youngmaidenhood, faded like a flower, until she, too, said good-nightand slept beside her mother. Wifeless, childless, the strickenmissionary hugged to his heart these two--George and Lydia--andthey, who had labored weeks and months, night and day, nursing andtending these loved ones, who had helped fight and grapple withdeath five times within two years, only to be driven back heartsoreand conquered by the enemy--these two put away the thought ofmarriage for the time. Joy would have been ill-fitting in thathousehold. Youth was theirs, health was theirs, and duty also wastheirs--duty to this man of God, whose house was their home, whosehand had brought them together. So the marriage did not take placeat once, but the young chief began making preparations on the estatehe had purchased to build a fitting home for this homeless girl whowas giving her life into his hands. After so many dark days, it wasa relief to get Mr. Evans interested in the plans of the houseGeorge was to build, to select the proper situation, to arrange fora barn, a carriage house, a stable, for young Mansion had savedmoney and acquired property of sufficient value to give his wife ahome that would vie with anything in the large border towns. Likemost Indians, he was recklessly extravagant, and many a time thethrifty Scotch blood of the missionary would urge more economy, less expenditure. But the building went on; George determined itwas to be a "Grand Mansion. " His very title demanded that he givehis wife an abode worthy of the ancestors who appropriated the nameas their own. 

"When you both go from me, even if it is only across the fields tothe new home, I shall be very much alone, " Mr. Evans had once said. Then in an agony of fear that his solitary life would shadow theirhappiness, he added quickly, "But I have a very sweet and lovelyniece who writes me she will come to look after this desolated homeif I wish it, and perhaps her brother will come, too, if I wanthim. I am afraid I _shall_ want him sorely, George. For though youwill be but five minutes walk from me, your face will not be at mybreakfast table to help me begin each day with a courage it hasalways inspired. So I beg that you two will not delay yourmarriage; give no thought to me. You are young but once, and youthhas wings of wonderful swiftness. Margaret and Christopher shallcome to me; but although they are my own flesh and blood, they willnever become to me what you two have been, and always will be. "

Within their recollection, the lovers had never heard themissionary make so long a speech. They felt the earnestness of it, the truth of it, and arranged to be married when the golden days ofAugust came. Lydia was to go to her married sister, in the easternpart of Canada, whose husband was a clergyman, and at whose homeshe had spent many of her girlhood years. George was to follow. Theywere to be quietly married and return by sailing vessel up thelakes, then take the stage from what is now the city of Toronto, arrive at the Indian Reserve, and go direct to the handsome homethe young chief had erected for his English bride. So Lydia Bestmanset forth on her long journey from which she was to return as thewife of the head chief of a powerful tribe of Indians--a manrevered, respected, looked up to by a vast nation, a man ofsterling worth, of considerable wealth as riches were counted inthose days, a man polished in the usages and etiquette of her ownpeople, who conducted himself with faultless grace, who would haveshone brilliantly in any drawing-room (and who in after years wasthe guest of honor at many a great reception by the governors ofthe land), a man young, stalwart, handsome, with an aristocraticlineage that bred him a native gentleman, with a grand old titlethat had come down to him through six hundred years of honor inwarfare and high places of his people. That this man should bedespised by her relatives and family connections because of hiswarm, red skin and Indian blood, never occurred to Lydia. Her angelsister had loved the youth, the old Scotch missionary little shortof adored him. Why, then, this shocked amazement of her relatives, that she should wish to wed the finest gentleman she had ever met, the man whose love and kindness had made her erstwhile blackenedand cruel world a paradise of sunshine and contentment? She wasbut little prepared for the storm of indignation that met herannouncement that she was engaged to marry a Mohawk Indian chief. 

Her sister, with whom she never had anything in common, who wasyears older, and had been married in England when Lydia was butthree years of age, implored, entreated, sneered, ridiculed andstormed. Lydia sat motionless through it all, and then the outragedsister struck a vital spot with: "I don't know what Elizabeth hasbeen thinking of all these years, to let you associate with Indianson an equality. _She_ is to blame for this. "

Then and only then, did Lydia blaze forth. "Don't you _dare_ speakof 'Liza like that!" flung the girl. "She was the only human beingin our whole family, the only one who ever took me in her arms, whoever called me 'dear, ' who ever kissed me as if she meant it. Itell you, she loved George Mansion better than she loved her cold, chilly English brothers. She loved _me_, and her house was my home, which yours never was. Yes, she loved me, angel girl that she was, and she died in a halo of happiness because I was happy andbecause I was to marry the noblest, kingliest gentleman I evermet. " The girl ceased, breathless. 

"Yes, " sneered her sister, "yes, marry an _Indian_!"

"Yes, " defied Lydia, "an _Indian_, who can give me not only abetter home than this threadbare parsonage of yours"--here sheswept scornful eyes about the meagre little, shabby room--"yes, ahome that any Bestman would be proud to own; but better than that, "she continued ragingly, "he has given me love--_love_, that you inyour chilly, inhuman home sneer at, but that I have cried out for;love that my dead mother prayed should come to me, from the momentshe left me a baby, alone, in England, until the hour when this onesplendid man took me into his heart. "

"Poor mother!" sighed the sister. "I am grateful she is spared_this_. "

"Don't think that she doesn't know it!" cried Lydia. "If 'Lizaapproved, mother does, and she is glad of her child's happiness. "

"Her child--yes, her child, " taunted the sister. "Child! child!Yes, and what of the _child_ you will probably mother?"

The crimson swept painfully down the young girl's face, but shebraved it out. 

"Yes, " she stammered, "a child, perhaps a _son_, a son of mine, who, poor boy, can never inherit his father's title. "

"And why not, pray?" remarked her sister. 

"Because the female line of lineage will be broken, " explained thegirl. "He _should_ marry someone else, so that the family titlecould follow the family name. His father and mother havepractically cast him off because of me. _Don't_ you see? Can't youunderstand that I am only an untitled commoner to his people? I amonly a white girl. "

"_Only_ a white girl!" repeated the sister, sarcastically. "Do youmean to tell me that you believe these wretched Indians don't wanthim to marry you? _You_, a _Bestman_, and an English girl?Nonsense, Lydia! You are talking utter nonsense. " But the sister'svoice weakened, nevertheless. 

"But it's true, " asserted the girl. "You don't understand theIndian nation as 'Liza did; it's perfectly true--a son of mine canclaim no family title; the honor of it must leave the name ofMansion forever. Oh, his parents have completely shut him out oftheir lives because I am only a white girl!" and the sweet youngvoice trembled woefully. 

"I decline to discuss this disgraceful matter with you anyfurther, " said the sister coldly. "Perhaps my good husband canbring you to your senses, " and the lady left the room in a fever ofindignation. 

But her "good husband, " the city clergyman, declined the task of"bringing Lydia to her senses. " He merely sent for her to go to hisstudy, and, as she stood timidly in the doorway, he set his smallsteely eyes on her and said:

"You will leave this house at once, to-night. _To-night_, do youhear? I'll have no Indian come _here_ after my wife's sister. Ihope you quite understand me?"

"Quite, sir, " replied the girl, and with a stiff bow she turned andwent back to her room. 

In the haste of packing up her poor and scanty wardrobe, she heardher sister's voice saying to the clergyman: "Oh! how _could_ yousend her away? You know she has no home, she has nowhere to go. How_could_ you do it?" All Lydia caught of his reply was: "Not anothernight, not another meal, in this house while _I_ am its master. "

Presently her sister came upstairs carrying a plate of pudding. Her eyes were red with tears, and her hands trembled. "Do eatthis, my dear; some tea is coming presently, " she said. 

But Lydia only shook her head, strapped her little box, and, putting on her bonnet, she commanded her voice sufficiently to say:"I am going now. I'll send for this box later. "

"Where are you going to?" her sister's voice trembled. 

"I--don't know, " said the girl. "But wherever I do go, it will bea kindlier place than this. Good-bye, sister. " She kissed thedistressed wife softly on each cheek, then paused at the bedroomdoor to say, "The man I am to marry loves me, honors me too much totreat me as a mere possession. I know that _he_ will never tell mehe is 'master. ' George Mansion may have savage blood in his veins, but he has grasped the meaning of the word 'Christianity' far morefully than your husband has. "

Her sister could not reply, but stood with streaming eyes andwatched the girl slip down the back stairs and out of a side door. 

For a moment Lydia Bestman stood on the pavement and glanced up anddown the street. The city was what was known as a garrison town inthe days when the British regular troops were quartered in Canada. Far down the street two gay young officers were walking, theirbrilliant uniforms making a pleasant splash of color in thesunlight. They seemed to suggest to the girl's mind a more thanwelcome thought. She knew the major's wife well, a gracious, whole-souled English lady whose kindness had oftentimes brightenedher otherwise colorless life. Instinctively the girl turned to thequarters of the married officers. She found the major's wife athome, and, burying her drawn little face in the good lady's lap, she poured forth her entire story. 

"My dear, " blazed out the usually placid lady, "if I were only themajor for a few moments, instead of his wife, I should--Ishould--well, I should just _swear_! There, now I've said it, andI'd _do_ it, too. Why, I never heard of such an outrage! My dear, kiss me, and tell me--when, how, do you expect your young chief tocome for you?"

"Next week, " said the girl, from the depths of those shelteringarms. 

"Then here you stay, right here with me. The major and I shall goto the church with you, see you safely married, bring you and yourHiawatha home for a cosy little breakfast, put you aboard the boatfor Toronto, and give you both our blessing and our love. " Andthe major's wife nodded her head with such emphasis that herquaint English curls bobbed about, setting Lydia off into a fit oflaughter. "That's right, my dear. You just begin to laugh now, andkeep it up for all the days to come. I'll warrant you've had littleof laughter in your young life, " she said knowingly. "From whatI've known of your father, he never ordered laughter as a dailyingredient in his children's food. Then that sweet Elizabethleaving you alone, so terribly alone, must have chased the sunshinefar from your little world. But after this, " she added brightly, "it's just going to be love and laughter. And now, my dear, we mustget back the rosy English color in your cheeks, or your youngHiawatha won't know his little white sweetheart. Run away to myspare room, girlie. The orderly will get a man to fetch your box. Then you can change your frock. Leave yesterday behind you forever. Have a little rest; you look as if you had not slept for a week. Then join the major and me at dinner, and we'll toast you and yourredskin lover in true garrison style. "

And Lydia, with the glorious recuperation of youth, ran joyouslyupstairs, smiling and singing like a lark, transformed with thefirst unadulterated happiness she had ever felt or known. 

PART III. 

Upon George Mansion's arrival at the garrison town he had been meton the wharf by the major, who took him to the hotel, whilehurriedly explaining just why he must not go near Lydia's sister andthe clergyman whom George had expected would perform the marriageceremony. "So, " continued the major, "you and Lydia are not to bemarried at the cathedral after all, but Mrs. Harold and I havearranged that the ceremony shall take place at little St. Swithin'sChurch in the West End. So you'll be there at eleven o'clock, eh, boy?"

"Yes, major, I'll be there, and before eleven, I'm afraid, I'm soanxious to take her home. I shall not endeavour to thank you andMrs. Harold for what you have done for my homeless girl. I can'teven--"

"Tut, tut, tut!" growled the major. "Haven't done anything. Blessmy soul, Chief, take my word for it, haven't done a thing to bethanked for. Here's your hotel. Get some coffee to brace yournerves up with, for I can assure you, boy, a wedding is a tryingordeal, even if there is but a handful of folks to see it through. Be a good boy, now--good-bye until eleven--St. Swithin's, remember, and God bless you!" and the big-hearted, blustering major waswhisked away in his carriage, leaving the young Indian halfoverwhelmed with his kindness, but as happy as the golden day. 

An hour or so later he stood at the hotel door a moment awaitingthe cab that was to take him to the church. He was dressed inthe height of the fashion of the early fifties--very dark winebroadcloth, the coat shaped tightly to the waist and adorned witha silk velvet collar, a pale lavender, flowered satin waistcoat, a dull white silk stock collar, a bell-shaped black silk hat. Hecarried his gloves, for throughout his entire life he declared hebreathed through his hands, and the wearing of gloves was abhorrentto him. Suddenly a gentleman accosted him with:

"I hear an Indian chief is in town. Going to be married here thismorning. Where is the ceremony to take place? Do you know anythingof it?"

Like all his race, George Mansion had a subtle sense of humor. Itseized upon him now. 

"Certainly I know, " he replied. "I happened to come down on theboat with the chief. I intend to go to the wedding myself. Iunderstand the ceremony was arranged to be at the cathedral. "

"Splendid!" said the gentleman. "And thank you, sir. "

Just then the cab arrived. Young Mansion stepped hastily in, noddedgood-bye to his acquaintance, and smilingly said in an undertone tothe driver, "St. Swithin's Church--and quickly. "

 * * * * *

"With this ring I thee wed, " he found himself saying to a littlefigure in a soft grey gown at his side, while a gentle-facedold clergyman in a snowy surplice stood before him, and asquare-shouldered, soldierly person in a brilliant uniform almosthugged his elbow. 

"I pronounce you man and wife. " At the words she turned towards herhusband like a carrier pigeon winging for home. Then somehow thesolemnity all disappeared. The major, the major's wife, two handsomeyoung officers, one girl friend, the clergyman, the clergyman'swife, were all embracing her, and she was dimpling with laughterand happiness; and George Mansion stood proudly by, his fine darkface eager, tender and very noble. 

"My dear, " whispered the major's wife, "he's a perfect prince--he'sjust as royal as he can be! I never saw such manners, such ease. Why, girlie, he's a courtier!"

"Confound the young rogue!" growled the major, in her ear. "Ihaven't an officer on my staff that can equal him. You're a luckygirl. Yes, confound him, I say!"

"Bless you, child, " said the clergyman's wife. "I think he'll makeyou happy. Be very sure that you make _him_ happy. "

And to all these whole-hearted wishes and comments, Lydia repliedwith smiles and care-free words. Then came the major, watch inhand, military precision and promptitude in his very tone. 

"Time's up, everybody! There's a bite to eat at the barracks, then these youngsters must be gone. The boat is due at oneo'clock--time's up. "

As the little party drove past the cathedral they observed a hugecrowd outside, waiting for the doors to be opened. Lydia laughedlike a child as George told her of his duplicity of the morning, when he had misled the inquiring stranger into thinking the Indianchief was to be married there. The little tale furnished fun forall at the pretty breakfast in the major's quarters. 

"Nice way to begin your wedding morning, young man!" scowled themajor, fiercely. "Starting this great day with a network offalsehoods. "

"Not at all, " smiled the Indian. "It was arranged for thecathedral, and I did attend the ceremony. "

"No excuses, you bare-faced scoundrel! I won't listen to them. Hereyou are happily married and all those poor would-be sight-seerssizzling out there in this glaring August sun. I'm ashamed of you!"But his arm was about George's shoulders, and he was wringing thedark, slender hand with a genuine good fellowship that was pleasantto see. "Bless my soul, I love you, boy!" he added, sincerely. "Love you through and through; and remember, I'm your white fatherfrom this day forth. "

"And I am your white mother, " said the major's wife, placing herhands on his shoulders. 

For a second the bridegroom's face sobered. Before him flashed apicture of a little old Indian woman with a broadcloth folded abouther shoulders, a small carven pipe between her lips, a world ofsorrow in her deep eyes--sorrow that he had brought there. He bentsuddenly and kissed Mrs. Harold's fingers with a grave and courtlydeference. "Thank you, " he said simply. 

But motherlike, she knew that his heart was bleeding. Lydia hadtold of his parents' antagonism, of the lost Mansion title. So thegood lady just gave his hand a little extra, understanding squeeze, and the good-byes began. 

"Be off with you, youngsters!" growled the major. "The boat isin--post haste now, or you'll miss it. Begone, both of you!"

And presently they found themselves once more in the carriage, thehorses galloping down to the wharf. And almost before they realizedit they were aboard, with the hearty "God bless you's" of thesplendid old major and his lovable wife still echoing in theirhappy young hearts. 

 * * * * *

It was evening, five days later, when they arrived at their newhome. All about the hills, and the woods, above the winding river, and along the edge of the distant forest, brooded that purplesmokiness that haunts the late days of August--the smokiness thatwas born of distant fires, where the Indians and pioneers were"clearing" their lands. The air was like amethyst, the setting suna fire opal. As on the day when she first had come into his life, George helped her to alight from the carriage, and they stood amoment, hand in hand, and looked over the ample acres that composedtheir estate. The young Indian had worked hard to have most of theland cleared, leaving here and there vast stretches of walnutgroves, and long lines of majestic elms, groups of sturdy oaks, andoccasionally a single regal pine tree. Many a time in later yearshis utilitarian friends would say, "Chief, these trees you arepreserving so jealously are eating up a great deal of your land. Why not cut away and grow wheat?" But he would always resent thesuggestion, saying that his wheat lands lay back from the river. They were for his body, doubtless, but here, by the river, thetrees must be--they were for his soul. And Lydia would champion himimmediately with, "Yes, they were there to welcome me as a bride, those grand old trees, and they will remain there, I think, as longas we both shall live. " So, that first evening at home they stoodand watched the imperial trees, the long, open flats bordering theriver, the nearby lawns which he had taken such pains to woo fromthe wilderness; stood palm to palm, and that moment seemed togovern all their after life. 

Someone has said that never in the history of the world have twopeople been perfectly mated. However true this may be, it is anundeniable fact that between the most devoted of life-mates therewill come inharmonious moments. Individuality would cease to existwere it not so. 

These two lived together for upwards of thirty years, and never hadone single quarrel, but oddly enough, when the rare inharmoniousmoments came, these groups of trees bridged the fleeting differenceof opinion or any slight antagonism of will and purpose; when theseunresponsive moments came, one or the other would begin to admirethose forest giants, to suggest improvements, to repeat theadmiration of others for their graceful outlines--to, in fact, direct thought and conversation into the common channel of lovefor those trees. This peculiarity was noticeable to outsiders, totheir own circle, to their children. At mere mention of the treesthe shadow of coming cloud would lessen, then waste, then growinvisible. Their mutual love for these voiceless yet voiceful andkingly creations was as the love of children for a flower--simple, nameless, beautiful and powerful beyond words. 

That first home night, as she stepped within doors, there awaitedtwo inexpressible surprises for her. First, on the dining-roomtable a silver tea service of seven pieces, imported fromEngland--his wedding gift to her. Second, in the quaint littledrawing-room stood a piano. In the "early fifties" this latterwas indeed a luxury, even in city homes. She uttered a little cryof delight, and flinging herself before the instrument, ran herfingers over the keys, and broke into his favorite song, "Oft inthe Stilly Night. " She had a beautiful voice, the possession ofwhich would have made her renowned had opportunity afforded itscultivation. She had "picked up" music and read it remarkably well, and he, Indian wise, was passionately fond of melody. So theylaughed and loved together over this new luxurious toy, untilMilly, the ancient Mohawk maid, tapped softly at the drawing-roomand bade them come to tea. With that first meal in her new home, the darkened hours and days and years smothered their hauntingvoices. She had "left yesterday behind her, " as the major's royalwife had wished her to, and for the first time in all her checkeredand neglected life she laughed with the gladness of a bird at song, flung her past behind her, and the grim unhappiness of her formerlife left her forever. 

 * * * * *

It was a golden morning in July when the doctor stood graspingGeorge Mansion's slender hands, searching into his dusky, anxiouseyes, and saying with ringing cheeriness, "Chief, I congratulateyou. You've got the most beautiful son upstairs--the finest boy Iever saw. Hail to the young chief, I say!"

The doctor was white. He did not know of the broken line oflineage--that "the boy upstairs" could never wear his father'stitle. A swift shadow fought for a second with glorious happiness. The battlefield was George Mansion's face, his heart. His unfilledduty to his parents assailed him like a monstrous enemy, thenhappiness conquered, came forth a triumphant victor, and the youngfather dashed noiselessly, fleetly up the staircase, and, despitethe protesting physician, in another moment his wife and son werein his arms. Title did not count in that moment; only Love in itstyrannical majesty reigned in that sacred room. 

The boy was a being of a new world, a new nation. Before he was twoweeks old he began to show the undeniable physique of the two greatraces from whence he came; all the better qualities of both bloodsseemed to blend within his small body. He was his father's son, he was his mother's baby. His grey-blue eyes held a hint of thedreaming forest, but also a touch of old England's skies. His hair, thick and black, was straight as his father's, except just abovethe temples, where a suggestion of his mother's pretty English curlswaved like strands of fine silk. His small mouth was thin-lipped;his nose, which even in babyhood never had the infantile "snub, "but grew straight, thin as his Indian ancestors', yet displayeda half-haughty English nostril; his straight little back--allcombined likenesses to his parents. But who could say which blooddominated his tiny person? Only the exquisite soft, pale brown ofhis satiny skin called loudly and insistently that he was of arace older than the composite English could ever boast; it was thehallmark of his ancient heritage--the birthright of his father'sson. 

But the odd little half-blood was extraordinarily handsome even asan infant. In after years when he grew into glorious manhood hewas generally acknowledged to be the handsomest man in the Provinceof Ontario, but to-day--his first day in these strange, newsurroundings--he was but a wee, brown, lovable bundle, whose tinygossamer hands cuddled into his father's palm, while his littlevelvet cheek lay rich and russet against the pearly whiteness ofhis mother's arm. 

"I believe he is like you, George, " she murmured, with a wealth oflove in her voice and eyes. 

"Yes, " smiled the young chief, "he certainly has Mansion blood; butyour eyes, Lydia, your dear eyes. "

"Which eyes must go to sleep and rest, " interrupted the physician, severely. "Come, Chief, you've seen your son, you've satisfiedyourself that Mrs. Mansion is doing splendidly, so away you go, or I shall scold. "

And George slipped down the staircase, and out into the radiantJuly sunshine, where his beloved trees arose about him, grand andmajestic, seeming to understand how full of joy, of exultation, had been this great new day. 

 * * * * *

The whims of women are proverbial, but the whims of men are thingsnever to be accounted for. This beautiful child was but a few weeksold when Mr. Bestman wrote, announcing to his daughter hisintention of visiting her for a few days. 

So he came to the Indian Reserve, to the handsome country home hisIndian son-in-law had built. He was amazed, surprised, delighted. His English heart revelled in the trees. "Like an Old Countrygentleman's estate in the Counties, " he declared. He kissed hisdaughter with affection, wrung his son-in-law's hand with a warmthand cordiality unmistakable in its sincerity, took the baby in hisarms and said over and over, "Oh, you sweet little child! You sweetlittle child!" Then the darkness of all those harsh years fell awayfrom Lydia. She could afford to be magnanimous, so with a sweetsilence, a loving forgetfulness of all the dead miseries and bygonewhip-lashes, she accepted her strange parent just as he presentedhimself, in the guise of a man whom the years had changed fromharshness to tenderness, and let herself thoroughly enjoy hisvisit. 

But when he drove away she had but one thing to say; it was, "George, I wonder when _your_ father will come to us, when your_mother_ will come. Oh, I want her to see the baby, for I think myown mother sees him. "

"Some day, dear, " he answered hopefully. "They will come some day;and when they do, be sure it will be to take you to their hearts. "

She sighed and shook her head unbelievingly. But the "some day"that he prophesied, but which she doubted, came in a manner all toosoon--all too unwelcome. The little son had just begun to walkabout nicely, when George Mansion was laid low with a lingeringfever that he had contracted among the marshes where much of hisbusiness as an employee of the Government took him. Evils had begunto creep into his forest world. The black and subtle evil of thewhite man's firewater had commenced to touch with its poisonousfinger the lives and lodges of his beloved people. The curse beganto spread, until it grew into a menace to the community. It was thesame old story: the white man had come with the Bible in one hand, the bottle in the other. George Mansion had striven side by sidewith Mr. Evans to overcome the dread scourge. Together they foughtthe enemy hand to hand, but it gained ground in spite of all theirefforts. The entire plan of the white liquor dealer's campaign wassimply an effort to exchange a quart of bad whiskey for a cord offirst-class firewood, or timber, which could be hauled off theIndian Reserve and sold in the nearby town markets for five orsix dollars; thus a hundred dollars worth of bad whiskey, ifjudiciously traded, would net the white dealer a thousand dollarscash. And the traffic went on, to the depletion of the Indianforests and the degradation of the Indian souls. 

Then the Canadian Government appointed young Mansion special forestwarden, gave him a "V. R. " hammer, with which he was to stampeach and every stick of timber he could catch being hauled offthe Reserve by white men; licensed him to carry firearms forself-protection, and told him to "go ahead. " He "went ahead. " Nightafter night he lay, concealing himself in the marshes, the forests, the trails, the concession lines, the river road, the Queen'shighway, seizing all the timber he could, destroying all thewhisky, turning the white liquor traders off Indian lands, andfighting as only a young, earnest and inspired man can fight. Thesehours and conditions began to tell on his physique. The marshesbreathed their miasma into his blood--the dreaded fever had him inits claws. Lydia was a born nurse. She knew little of thermometers, of charts, of technical terms, but her ability and instincts in thesick-room were unerring; and, when her husband succumbed to araging fever, love lent her hands an inspiration and her brain aclarity that would have shamed many a professional nurse. 

For hours, days, weeks, she waited, tended, watched, administered, labored and loved beside the sick man's bed. She neither slept norate enough to carry her through the ordeal, but love lent herstrength, and she battled and fought for his life as only anadoring woman can. Her wonderful devotion was the common talk ofthe country. She saw no one save Mr. Evans and the doctors. Shenever left the sick-room save when her baby needed her. But it allseemed so useless, so in vain, when one dark morning the doctorsaid, "We had better send for his father and mother. "

Poor Lydia! Her heart was nearly breaking. She hurriedly told thedoctor the cause that had kept them away so long, adding, "Is it sobad as that? Oh, doctor, _must I send for them_? They don't want tocome. " Before the good man could reply, there was a muffled knockat the door. Then Milly's old wrinkled face peered in, and Milly'svoice said whisperingly, "His people--they here. "

"Whose people? Who are here?" almost gasped Lydia. 

"His father and his mother, " answered the old woman. "Theydownstairs. "

For a brief moment there was silence. Lydia could not trust herselfto speak, but ill as he was, George's quick Indian ear had caughtMilly's words. He murmured, "Mother! mother! Oh, my mother!"

"Bring her, quickly, _quickly_!" said Lydia to the doctor. 

It seemed to the careworn girl that a lifetime followed before thedoor opened noiselessly, and there entered a slender little oldIndian woman, in beaded leggings, moccasins, "short skirt, " and ablue "broadcloth" folded about her shoulders. She glanced swiftlyat the bed, but with the heroism of her race went first towardsLydia, laid her cheek silently beside the white girl's, then lookeddirectly into her eyes. 

"Lydia!" whispered George, "Lydia!" At the word both women movedswiftly to his side. "Lydia, " he repeated, "my mother cannot speakthe English, but her cheek to yours means that you are her bloodrelation. "

The effort of speech almost cost him a swoon, but his mother'scheek was now against his own, and the sweet, dulcet Mohawklanguage of his boyhood returned to his tongue; he was speaking itto his mother, speaking it lovingly, rapidly. Yet, although Lydianever understood a word, she did not feel an outsider, for the oldmother's hand held her own, and she knew that at last the gulf wasbridged. 

 * * * * *

It was two days later, when the doctor pronounced George Mansionout of danger, that the sick man said to his wife: "Lydia, it isall over--the pain, the estrangement. My mother says that you areher daughter. My father says that you are his child. They heard ofyour love, your nursing, your sweetness. They want to know if youwill call them 'father, mother. ' They love you, for you are one oftheir own. "

"At last, at last!" half sobbed the weary girl. "Oh, George, I amso happy! _You_ are going to get well, and _they_ have come to usat last. "

"Yes, dear, " he replied. Then with a half humorous yet whollypathetic smile flitting across his wan face, he added, "And mymother has a little gift for you. " He nodded then towards thequaint old figure at the further side of the bed. His mother arose, and, drawing from her bosom a tiny, russet-colored object, laid itin Lydia's hand. It was a little moccasin, just three and a quarterinches in length. "Its mate is lost, " added the sick man, "but Iwore it as a baby. My mother says it is yours, and should have beenyours all these years. "

For a second the two women faced each other, then Lydia sat downabruptly on the bedside, her arms slipped about the older woman'sshoulders, and her face dropped quickly, heavily--at last on amother's breast. 

George Mansion sighed in absolute happiness, then closed his eyesand slept the great, strong, vitalizing sleep of reviving forces. 

PART IV. 

How closely the years chased one another after this! But many ahappy day within each year found Lydia and her husband's mothersitting together, hour upon hour, needle in hand, sewing andharmonizing--the best friends in all the world. It mattered notthat "mother" could not speak one word of English, or that Lydianever mastered but a half dozen words of Mohawk. These two werefriends in the sweetest sense of the word, and their lives sweptforward in a unison of sympathy that was dear to the heart of theman who held them as the two most precious beings in all the world. 

And with the years came new duties, new responsibilities, newlittle babies to love and care for until a family, usually called"A King's Desire, " gathered at their hearthside--four children, theeldest a boy, the second a girl, then another boy, then anothergirl. These children were reared on the strictest lines of bothIndian and English principles. They were taught the legends, thetraditions, the culture and the etiquette of both races to whichthey belonged; but above all, their mother instilled into them fromthe very cradle that they were of their father's people, not ofhers. Her marriage had made her an Indian by the laws which governCanada, as well as by the sympathies and yearnings and affectionsof her own heart. When she married George Mansion she had repeatedto him the centuries-old vow of allegiance, "Thy people shall be mypeople, and thy God my God. " She determined that should she ever bemother to his children, those children should be reared as Indiansin spirit and patriotism, and in loyalty to their father's race aswell as by heritage of blood. The laws of Canada held these childrenas Indians. They were wards of the Government; they were born onIndian lands, on Indian Reservations. They could own and holdIndian lands, and their mother, English though she was, made it herlife service to inspire, foster and elaborate within these childrenthe pride of the race, the value of that copper-tinted skin whichthey all displayed. When people spoke of blood and lineage andnationality, these children would say, "We are Indians, " with theair with which a young Spanish don might say, "I am a Castilian. "She wanted them to grow up nationalists, and they did, everymother's son and daughter of them. Things could never have beenotherwise, for George Mansion and his wife had so much in commonthat their offspring could scarcely evince other than inheritedparental traits. Their tastes and distastes were so synonymous; theyhated hypocrisy, vulgarity, slovenliness, imitations. 

After forty years spent on a Canadian Indian Reserve, LydiaMansion still wore real lace, real tortoise shell combs, real furs. If she could not have procured these she would have worn plainlinen collars, no combs, and a woven woolen scarf about her throat;but the imitation fabrics, as well as the "imitation people, " hadno more part in her life than they had in her husband's, whoabhorred all such pinchbeck. Their loves were identical. They lovednature--the trees, best of all, and the river, and the birds. Theyloved the Anglican Church, they loved the British flag, they lovedQueen Victoria, they loved beautiful, dead Elizabeth Evans, theyloved strange, reticent Mr. Evans. They loved music, pictures anddainty china, with which George Mansion filled his beautiful home. They loved books and animals, but, most of all, these two lovedthe Indian people, loved their legends, their habits, theircustoms--loved the people themselves. Small wonder, then, thattheir children should be born with pride of race and heritage, andshould face the world with that peculiar, unconquerable couragethat only a fighting ancestry can give. 

As the years drifted on, many distinctions came to the little familyof the "Grand Mansions. " The chief's ability as an orator, hisfluency of speech, his ceaseless war against the inroads of theborder white men and their lawlessness among his own people--allgradually but surely brought him, inch by inch, before the noticeof those who sat in the "seats of the mighty" of both church andstate. His presence was frequently demanded at Ottawa, fighting forthe cause of his people before the House of Commons, the Senate, and the Governor-General himself. At such times he would alwayswear his native buckskin costume, and his amazing rhetoric, augmented by the gorgeous trappings of his office and hisinimitable courtesy of manner, won him friends and followers amongthe lawmakers of the land. He never fought for a cause and lostit, never returned to Lydia and his people except in a triumphof victory. Social honors came to him as well as politicaldistinctions. Once, soon after his marriage, a special review ofthe British troops quartered at Toronto was called in his honorand he rode beside the general, making a brilliant picture, clad ashe was in buckskins and scarlet blanket and astride his pet blackpony, as he received the salutes of company after company ofEngland's picked soldiers as they wheeled past. And when KingEdward of England visited Canada as Prince of Wales, he fastenedwith his own royal hands a heavy silver medal to the buckskincovering George Mansion's breast, and the royal words were verysincere as they fell from the prince's lips: "This medal is forrecognition of your loyalty in battling for your own people, evenas your ancestors battled for the British Crown. " Then in lateryears, when Prince Arthur of Connaught accepted the title of"Chief, " conferred upon him with elaborate ceremony by thechiefs, braves and warriors of the great Iroquois Council, itwas George Mansion who was chosen as special escort to the royalvisitor--George Mansion and his ancient and honored father, who, hand-in-hand with the young prince, walked to and fro, chanting theimpressive ritual of bestowing the title. Even Bismarck, the "IronChancellor" of Germany, heard of this young Indian warring for thewelfare of his race, and sent a few kindly words, with his ownphotograph, from across seas to encourage the one who was fighting, single-handed, the menace of white man's greed and white man'sfirewater. 

And Lydia, with her glad and still girlish heart, gloried in herhusband's achievements and in the recognition accorded him by thegreat world beyond the Indian Reserve, beyond the wilderness, beyond the threshold of their own home. In only one thing weretheir lives at all separated. She took no part in his public life. She hated the glare of the fierce light that beat upon prominentlives, the unrest of fame, the disquiet of public careers. 

"No, " she would answer, when oftentimes he begged her to accompanyhim and share his success and honors, "no, I was homeless so longthat 'home' is now my ambition. My babies need me here, and youneed me here when you return, far more than you need me on platformor parade. Go forth and fight the enemy, storm the battlements andwin the laurels, but let me keep the garrison--here at home, withour babies all about me and a welcome to our warrior husband andfather when he returns from war. "

Then he would laugh and coax again, but always with the sameresult. Every day, whether he went forth to the Indian Councilacross the river, or when more urgent duties called him to theCapital, she always stood at the highest window waving herhandkerchief until he was out of sight, and that dainty flag lentstrength to his purpose and courage to his heart, for he knew thehome citadel was there awaiting his return--knew that she would beat that selfsame window, their children clustered about her skirts, her welcoming hands waving a greeting instead of a good-bye, assoon as he faced the home portals once more, and in his heart ofhearts George Mansion felt that his wife had chosen the wiser, greater part; that their children would some day arise and call herblessed because she refused to wing away from the home nest, evenif by so doing she left him to take his flights alone. 

But in all their world there was no one prouder of his laurelsand successes than his home-loving, little English wife, and themother-heart of her must be forgiven for welcoming each new honoras a so much greater heritage for their children. Each distinctionwon by her husband only established a higher standard for theirchildren to live up to. She prayed and hoped and prayed again thatthey would all be worthy such a father, that they would never fallshort of his excellence. To this end she taught, labored for, and loved them, and they, in turn, child-wise, responded to herteaching, imitating her allegiance to their father, reflecting herfealty, and duplicating her actions. So she molded these littleones with the mother-hand that they felt through all their afterlives, which were but images of her own in all that concerned theirfather. 

 * * * * *

The first great shadow that fell on this united little circle waswhen George Mansion's mother quietly folded her "broadcloth" abouther shoulders for the last time, when the little old tobacco pipelay unfilled and unlighted, when the finely-beaded moccasins wereempty of the dear feet that had wandered so gently, so silentlyinto the Happy Hunting Grounds. George Mansion was bowed with woe. His mother had been to him the queen of all women, and her deathleft a desolation in his heart that even his wife could not assuage. It was a grief he really never overcame. Fortunately his mother hadgrown so attached to Lydia that his one disobedience--that of hismarriage--never reproached him. Had the gentle little old Indianwoman died before the episode of the moccasin which brought completereconciliation, it is doubtful if her son would ever have been quitethe same again. As it was, with the silence and stoicism of his racehe buried his grief in his own heart, without allowing it to cast agloom over his immediate household. 

But after that the ancient chief, his father, came more frequentlyto George's home, and was always an honored guest. The childrenloved him, Lydia had the greatest respect and affection for him, the greatest sympathy for his loneliness, and she ever made himwelcome and her constant companion when he visited them. He usedto talk to her much of George, and once or twice gave her gravewarnings as to his recklessness and lack of caution in dealing withthe ever-growing menace of the whisky traffic among the Indians. The white men who supplied and traded this liquor were desperadoes, a lawless set of ruffians who for some time had determined to ridtheir stamping-ground of George Mansion, as he was the chiefopponent to their business, and with the way well cleared of himand his unceasing resistance, their scoundrelly trade would be aneasy matter. 

"Use all your influence, Lydia, " the old father would say, "to urgehim never to seize the ill-gotten timber or destroy their whisky, unless he has other Indian wardens with him. They'll kill him ifthey can, those white men. They have been heard to threaten. "

For some time this very thing had been crowding its truth about hiswife's daily life. Threatening and anonymous letters had more thanonce been received by her husband--letters that said he would be"put out of the way" unless he stopped interfering in the liquortrade. There was no ignoring the fact that danger was growingdaily, that the fervent young chief was allowing his zeal toovercome his caution, was hazarding his life for the protection ofhis people against a crying evil. Once a writer of these unsignedletters threatened to burn his house down in the dead of night, another to maim his horses and cattle, others to "do away" withhim. His crusade was being waged under the weight of a cross thatwas beginning to fall on his loyal wife, and to overshadow hischildren. Then one night the blow fell. Blind with blood, crushedand broken, he staggered and reeled home, unaided, unassisted, and in excruciating torture. Nine white men had attacked him frombehind in a border village a mile from his home, where he had goneto intercept a load of whisky that was being hauled into the IndianReserve. Eight of those lawbreakers circled about him, while theninth struck him from behind with a leaden plumb attached to anelastic throw-string. The deadly thing crushed in his skull; hedropped where he stood, as if shot. Then brutal boots kicked hisface, his head, his back, and, with curses, his assailants lefthim--for dead. 

With a vitality born of generations of warriors, he regainedconsciousness, staggered the mile to his own gate, where he met afriend, who, with extreme concern, began to assist him into hishome. But he refused the helping arm with, "No, I go alone; itwould alarm Lydia if I could not walk alone. " These, with thefew words he spoke as he entered the kitchen, where his wifewas overseeing old Milly get the evening meal, were the lastintelligent words he spoke for many a day. 

"Lydia, they've hurt me at last, " he said, gently. 

She turned at the sound of his strained voice. A thousand emotionsoverwhelmed her at the terrifying sight before her. Love, fear, horror, all broke forth from her lips in a sharp, hysterical cry, but above this cry sounded the gay laughter of the children whowere playing in the next room, their shrill young voices raised inmerriment over some new sport. In a second the mother-heart asserteditself. Their young eyes must not see this ghastly thing. 

"Milly!" she cried to the devoted Indian servant, "help ChiefGeorge. " Then dashing into the next room, she half sobbed, "Children, children! hush, oh, hush! Poor father--"

She never finished the sentence. With a turn of her arm she sweptthem all into the drawing-room, closed the door, and flew back toher patriot husband. 

For weeks and weeks he lay fighting death as only a determinedman can--his upper jaw broken on both sides, his lower jawsplintered on one side, his skull so crushed that to the endof his days a silver dollar could quite easily be laid flat inthe cavity, a jagged and deep hole in his back, and injuriesabout the knees and leg bones. And all these weeks Lydia hoveredabove his pillow, night and day, nursing, tending, helping, cheering. What effort it cost her to be bright and smiling notongue can tell, for her woman's heart saw that this was but thebeginning of the end. She saw it when in his delirium he raved toget better, to be allowed to get up and go on with the fight; sawthat his spirit never rested, for fear that, now he was temporarilyinactive, the whisky dealers would have their way. She knew thenthat she must school herself to endure this thing again; that shemust never ask him to give up his life work, never be lesscourageous than he, tough that courage would mean never a peacefulmoment to her when he was outside their own home. 

Mr. Evans was a great comfort to her during those terrible weeks. Hour after hour he would sit beside the injured man, never speakingor moving, only watching quietly, while Lydia barely snatched thenecessary sleep a nurse must have, or attended to the essentialneeds of the children, who, however, were jealously cared for byfaithful Milly. During those times the children never spoke exceptin whispers, their rigid Indian-English training in self-effacementand obedience being now of untold value. 

But love and nursing and bravery all counted in the end, and oneday George Mansion walked downstairs, the doctor's arm on one side, Lydia's on the other. He immediately asked for his pistol and hisdagger, cleaned the one, oiled and sharpened the other, and said, "I'll be ready for them again in a month's time. "

But while he lay injured his influential white friends and theGovernment at Ottawa had not been idle. The lawless creature whodealt those unmerited blows was tried, convicted and sent toKingston Penitentiary for seven years. So one enemy was out of theway for the time being. It was at this time that advancing successlost him another antagonist, who was placed almost in the rank ofan ally. 

George Mansion was a guest of the bishop of his diocese, as he wasa lay delegate accompanying Mr. Evans to the Anglican Synod. Thechief's work had reached other ears than those of the Government atOttawa, and the bishop was making much of the patriot, when in theSee House itself an old clergyman approached him with outstretchedhand and the words, "I would like you to call bygones justbygones. "

"I don't believe I have the honor of knowing you, sir, " replied theIndian, with a puzzled but gracious look. 

"I am your wife's brother-in-law, " said the old clergyman, "the manwho would not allow her to be married from my house--that is, married to _you_. "

The Indian bit his lip and instinctively stepped backward. Addedto his ancestral creed of never forgiving such injury, came a rushof memory--the backward-surging picture of his homeless littlesweetheart and all that she had endured. Then came the memory ofhis dead mother's teaching--teaching she had learned from her ownmother, and she in turn from her mother: "Always forget yourselffor _old_ people, always honor the _old_. "

Instantly George Mansion arose--arose above the prejudices of hisblood, above the traditions of his race, arose to the highestplane a man can reach--the memory of his mother's teaching. 

"I would hardly be here as a lay delegate of my church were I notwilling to let bygones be bygones, " he said, simply, and laid hishand in that of the old clergyman, about whose eyes there wasmoisture, perhaps because this opportunity for peacemaking hadcome so tardily. 

 * * * * *

The little family of "Grand Mansions" were now growing to very "bigchildhood, " and the inevitable day came when Lydia's heart must bearthe wrench of having her firstborn say good-bye to take his collegecourse. She was not the type of mother who would keep the boy athome because of the heartache the good-byes must bring, but theparting was certainly a hard one, and she watched his going with asense of loss that was almost greater than her pride in him. He hadgiven evidence of the most remarkable musical talent. He playedclassical airs even before he knew a note, and both his parentswere in determined unison about this talent being cultivated. Thefollowing year the oldest daughter also entered college, havinghad a governess at home for a year, as some preparation. But thesechanges brought no difference into the home, save that GeorgeMansion's arm grew stronger daily in combat against the old foe. Then came the second attack of the enemy, when six white men besethim from behind, again knocking him insensible, with a heavy bluebeech hand-spike. They broke his hand and three ribs, knocked outhis teeth, injured his side and head; then seizing his pistol, shotat him, the ball fortunately not reaching a vital spot. As hissenses swam he felt them drag his poor maimed body into the middleof the road, so it would appear as if horses had trampled him, thenhe heard them say, "_This_ time the devil is dead. " But hoursafterwards he again arose, again walked home, five interminablemiles, again greeted his ever watchful and anxious wife with, "Lydia, they've hurt me once more. " Then came weeks of renewedsuffering, of renewed care and nursing, of renewed vitality, andat last of conquered health. 

These two terrible illnesses seemed to raise Lydia into a peculiar, half-protecting attitude towards him. In many ways she "mothered"him almost as though he were her son--he who had always been theleader, and so strong and self-reliant. After this, when he wentforth on his crusades, she watched his going with the haunting fearwith which one would watch a child wandering on the edge of achasm. She waited on him when he returned, served him with thetenderness with which one serves a cripple or a baby. Once he caughther arm, as she carried to him a cup of broth, after he had spentwearisome hours at the same old battle, and turning towards her, said softly: "You are like my mother used to be to me. " She did notask him in what way--she knew--and carried broth to him when nexthe came home half exhausted. Gradually he now gathered about hima little force of zealous Indians who became enthusiastic to takeup arms with him against the whisky dealers. He took greaterprecautions in his work, for the growing mist of haunting anxietyin Lydia's eyes began to call to him that there were other claimsthan those of the nation. His splendid zeal had brought her manya sleepless night, when she knew he was scouring the forests forhidden supplies of the forbidden merchandise, and that a whole armyof desperadoes would not deter him from fulfilling his duty ofdestroying it. He felt, rather than saw, that she never bade himgood-bye but that she was prepared not to see him again alive. Added to this he began to suffer as she did--to find that in hisgood-byes was the fear of never seeing her again. He, who hadalways been so fearless, was now afraid of the day when he shouldnot return and she would be once more alone. 

So he let his younger and eager followers do some of the battling, though he never relaxed his vigilance, never took off his armor, soto speak. But now he spent long days and quiet nights with Lydiaand his children. They entertained many guests, for the young peoplewere vigorous and laughter-loving, and George and Lydia never grewold, never grew weary, never grew commonplace. All the year roundguests came to the hospitable country house--men and women ofculture, of learning, of artistic tastes, of congenial habits. Scientists, authors, artists, all made their pilgrimages to thisunique household, where refinement and much luxury, and always aglad welcome from the chief and his English wife, made their visitslong remembered. And in some way or other, as their children grewup, those two seemed to come closer together once more. They walkedamong the trees they had once loved in those first bridal days, they rested by the river shore, they wandered over the broad meadowsand bypaths of the old estate, they laughed together frequently likechildren, and always and ever talked of and acted for the good ofthe Indian people who were so unquestionably the greatest interestin their lives, outside their own children. But one day, when thebeautiful estate he was always so proud of was getting ready tosmile under the suns of spring, he left her just when she neededhim most, for their boys had plunged forward into the world ofbusiness in the large cities, and she wanted a strong arm to leanon. It was the only time he failed to respond to her devotednursing, but now she could not bring him back from the river'sbrink, as she had so often done before. Cold had settled in all thebroken places of his poor body, and he slipped away from her, asacrifice to his fight against evil on the altar of his nation'sgood. In his feverish wanderings he returned to the tongue of hischildhood, the beautiful, dulcet Mohawk. Then recollecting andcommanding himself, he would weakly apologize to Lydia with: "Iforgot; I thought it was my mother, " and almost his last words were, "It must be by my mother's side, " meaning his resting-place. So hisvaliant spirit went fearlessly forth. 

 * * * * *

"Do you ever think, dear, " said Lydia to her youngest child, someyears later, "that you are writing the poetry that always lived inan unexpressed state here in my breast?"

"No, Marmee, " answered the girl, who was beginning to mount theladder of literature, "I never knew you wanted to _write_ poetry, although I knew you loved it. "

"Indeed, I did, " answered the mother, "but I never could findexpression for it. I was made just to sing, I often think, but Inever had the courage to sing in public. But I did want to writepoetry, and now you, dear, are doing it for me. How proud yourfather would have been of you!"

"Oh, he knows! I'm sure he knows all that I have written, " answeredthe girl, with the sublime faith that youth has in its ownconvictions. "And if you like my verses, Marmee, I am sure he does, for he knows. "

"Perhaps, " murmured the older woman. "I often feel that he is verynear to us. I never have felt that he is really gone very far awayfrom me. "

"Poor little Marmee!" the girl would say to herself. "She misses himyet. I believe she will always miss him. "

Which was the truth. She saw constantly his likeness in all herchildren, bits of his character, shades of his disposition, reflections of his gifts and talents, hints of his bravery, and shealways spoke of these with a commending air, as though they werecharacteristics to be cultivated, to be valued and fostered. 

At first her fear of leaving her children, even to join him, wasevident, she so believed in a mother's care and love being anecessity to a child. She had sadly missed it all out of her ownstrange life, and she felt she _must_ live until this youngestdaughter grew to be a woman. Perhaps this desire, this mother-love, kept her longer beside her children than she would have stayedwithout it, for the years rolled on, and her hair whitened, heronce springing step halted a little, the glorious blue of herEnglish eyes grew very dreamy, and tender, and wistful. Was sheseeing the great Hereafter unfold itself before her as her stepsdrew nearer and nearer?

And one night the Great Messenger knocked softly at her door, and with a sweet, gentle sigh she turned and followed where heled--joining gladly the father of her children in the land thatholds both whites and Indians as one. 

And the daughter who writes the verses her mother always felt, butfound no words to express, never puts a last line to a story, or asweet cadence into a poem, but she says to herself as she holds hermother's memory within her heart:

"She knows--she knows. "

Catharine of the "Crow's Nest"

The great transcontinental railway had been in running order foryears before the managers thereof decided to build a second lineacross the Rocky Mountains. But "passes" are few and far betweenin those gigantic fastnesses, and the fearless explorers, followedby the equally fearless surveyors, were many a toilsome monthconquering the heights, depths and dangers of the "Crow's NestPass. "

Eastward stretched the gloriously fertile plains of southern"Sunny Alberta, " westward lay the limpid blue of the vast andindescribably beautiful Kootenay Lakes, but between these twoarose a barrier of miles and miles of granite and stone and rock, over and through which a railway must be constructed. Tunnels, bridges, grades must be bored, built and blasted out. It was thework of science, endurance and indomitable courage. The summersin the canyons were seething hot, the winters in the mountainsperishingly cold, with apparently inexhaustible snow cloudscircling forever about the rugged peaks--snows in which many agood, honest laborer was lost until the eagles and vultures camewith the April thaws, and wheeled slowly above the pulselesssleeper, if indeed the wolves and mountain lions had permitted himto lie thus long unmolested. Those were rough and rugged days, through which equally rough and rugged men served and suffered tofind foundations whereon to lay those two threads of steel that nowcling like a cobweb to the walls of the wonderful "gap" known asCrow's Nest Pass. 

Work progressed steadily, and before winter set in constructioncamps were built far into "the gap, " the furthermost one being closeto the base of a majestic mountain, which was also named "TheCrow's Nest. " It arose beyond the camp with almost overwhelmingimmensity. Dense forests of Douglas fir and bull pines shoulderedtheir way up one-third of its height, but above the timber linethe shaggy, bald rock reared itself thousands of feet skyward, desolate, austere and deserted by all living things; not even thesure-footed mountain goat travelled up those frowning, precipitousheights; no bird rested its wing in that frozen altitude. Themountain arose, distinct, alone, isolated, the most imperialmonarch of all that regal Pass. 

The construction gang called it "Old Baldy, " for after working somemonths around its base, it began to grow into their lives. Not so, however, with the head engineer from Montreal, who regarded italways with baleful eye, and half laughingly, half seriously, called it his "Jonah. "

"Not a thing has gone right since we worked in sight of that oldmonster, " he was heard to say frequently; and it did seem as ifthere were some truth in it. There had been deaths, accidents andillness among the men. Once, owing to transportation difficulties, the rations were short for days, and the men were in rebelliousspirit in consequence. Twice whiskey had been smuggled in, to theutter demoralization of the camp; and one morning, as a last straw, "Cookee" had nearly severed his left hand from his arm with a meataxe. Young Wingate, the head engineer, and Mr. Brown, the foreman, took counsel together. For the three meals of that day they triedthree different men out of the gang as "cookees. " No one could eatthe atrocious food they manufactured. Then Brown bethought himself. "There's an Indian woman living up the canyon that can cook likea French chef, " he announced, after a day of unspeakable gnawingbeneath his belt. "How about getting her? I've tasted pork andbeans at her shack, and flapjacks, and--"

"Get her! get her!" clamored Wingate. "Even if she poisons us, it'sbetter than starving. I'll ride over to-night and offer her bigwages. "

"How about her staying here?" asked Brown. "The boys are prettyrough and lawless at times, you know. "

"Get the axe men to build her a good, roomy shack--the best logs inthe place. We'll give her a lock and key for it, and you, Brown, report the very first incivility to her that you hear of, " saidWingate crisply. 

That evening Mr. Wingate himself rode over to the canyon; it was agood mile, and the trail was rough in the extreme. He did notdismount when he reached the lonely log lodge, but rapping on thedoor with the butt of his quirt, he awaited its opening. There wassome slight stirring about inside before this occurred; then thedoor slowly opened, and she stood before him--a rather tall woman, clad in buckskin garments, with a rug made of coyote skins abouther shoulders; she wore the beaded leggings and moccasins of herrace, and her hair, jet black, hung in ragged plaits about her darkface, from which mournful eyes looked out at the young Montrealer. 

Yes, she would go for the wages he offered, she said in haltingEnglish; she would come to-morrow at daybreak; she would cook theirbreakfast. 

"Better come to-night, " he urged. "The men get down the grade towork very early; breakfast must be on time. "

"I be on time, " she replied. "I sleep here this night, every night. I not sleep in camp. "

Then he told her of the shack he had ordered and that was even nowbeing built. 

She shook her head. "I sleep here every night, " she reiterated. 

Wingate had met many Indians in his time, so dropped the subject, knowing full well that persuasion or argument would be utterlyuseless. 

"All right, " he said; "you must do as you like; only remember, anearly breakfast to-morrow. "

"I 'member, " she replied. 

He had ridden some twenty yards, when he turned to call back: "Oh, what's your name, please?"

"Catharine, " she answered, simply. 

"Thank you, " he said, and, touching his hat lightly, rode downtowards the canyon. Just as he was dipping over its rim he lookedback. She was still standing in the doorway, and above and about herwere the purple shadows, the awful solitude, of Crow's NestMountain. 

 * * * * *

Catharine had been cooking at the camp for weeks. The meals weregood, the men respected her, and she went her way to and from hershack at the canyon as regularly as the world went around. Theautumn slipped by, and the nipping frosts of early winter and thedepths of early snows were already daily occurrences. The big groupof solid log shacks that formed the construction camp were all madeweather-tight against the long mountain winter. Trails werebeginning to be blocked, streams to freeze, and "Old Baldy, "already wore a canopy of snow that reached down to the timber line. 

"Catharine, " spoke young Wingate, one morning, when the clouds hunglow and a soft snow fell, packing heavily on the selfsame snows ofthe previous night, "you had better make up your mind to occupy theshack here. You won't be able to go to your home much longer nowat night; it gets dark so early, and the snows are too heavy. "

"I go home at night, " she repeated. 

"But you can't all winter, " he exclaimed. "If there was one singlehorse we could spare from the grade work, I'd see you got it foryour journeys, but there isn't. We're terribly short now; everyanimal in the Pass is overworked as it is. You'd better not trygoing home any more. "

"I go home at night, " she repeated. 

Wingate frowned impatiently; then in afterthought he smiled. "Allright, Catharine, " he said, "but I warn you. You'll have asearch-party out after you some dark morning, and you know it won'tbe pleasant to be lost in the snows up that canyon. "

"But I go home, night-time, " she persisted, and that ended thecontroversy. 

But the catastrophe he predicted was inevitable. Morning aftermorning he would open the door of the shack he occupied with theother officials, and, looking up the white wastes through thegray-blue dawn, he would watch the distances with an anxiety thatmeant more than a consideration for his breakfast. The womaninterested him. She was so silent, so capable, so stubborn. Whatwas behind all this strength of character? What had given thatdepth of mournfulness to her eyes? Often he had surprised herwatching him, with an odd longing in her face; it was something ofthe expression he could remember his mother wore when she lookedat him long, long ago. It was a vague, haunting look that alwaysbrought back the one great tragedy of his life--a tragedy he waseven now working night and day at his chosen profession to obliteratefrom his memory, lest he should be forever unmanned--forever a preyto melancholy. 

He was still a young man, but when little more than a boy he hadmarried, and for two years was transcendently happy. Then came thecry of "Kootenay Gold" ringing throughout Canada--of the untoldwealth of Kootenay mines. Like thousands of others he followed thebeckoning of that yellow finger, taking his young wife and babydaughter West with him. The little town of Nelson, crouching on itsbeautiful hills, its feet laved by the waters of Kootenay Lake, wasthen in its first robust, active infancy. Here he settled, goingout alone on long prospecting expeditions; sometimes he was away aweek, sometimes a month, with the lure of the gold forever in hisveins, but the laughter of his child, the love of his wife, foreverin his heart. Then--the day of that awful home-coming! For threeweeks the fascination of searching for the golden pay-streak hadheld him in the mountains. No one could find him when it happened, and now all they could tell him was the story of an upturned canoefound drifting on the lake, of a woman's light summer shawl caughtin the thwarts, of a child's little silken bonnet washed ashore. [Fact. ] The great-hearted men of the West had done their utmostin the search that followed. Miners, missionaries, prospectors, Indians, settlers, gamblers, outlaws, had one and all turned out, for they liked young Wingate, and they adored his loving wife anddainty child. But the search was useless. The wild shores ofKootenay Lake alone held the secret of their resting-place. 

Young Wingate faced the East once more. There was but one thingto do with his life--work, _work_, WORK; and the harder, the moredifficult, that work, the better. It was this very difficulty thatmade the engineering on the Crow's Nest Pass so attractive to him. So here he was building grades, blasting tunnels, with Catharine'smournful eyes following him daily, as if she divined something ofthat long-ago sorrow that had shadowed his almost boyish life. 

He liked the woman, and his liking quickened his eye to herhardships, his ear to the hint of lagging weariness in her footsteps;so he was the first to notice it the morning she stumped into thecook-house, her feet bound up in furs, her face drawn in agony. 

"Catharine, " he exclaimed, "your feet have been frozen!"

She looked like a culprit, but answered: "Not much; I get lose instorm las' night. "

"I thought this would happen, " he said, indignantly. "After thisyou sleep here. "

"I sleep home. " she said, doggedly. 

"I won't have it, " he declared. "I'll cook for the men myselffirst. "

"Allight, " she replied. "You cookee; I go home--me. "

That night there was a terrible storm. The wind howled down thethroat of the Pass, and the snow fell like bales of sheep's wool, blanketing the trails and drifting into the railroad cuts untilthey attained their original level. But after she had cooked supperCatharine started for home as usual. The only unusual thing aboutit was that the next morning she did not return. It was Sunday, themen's day "off. " Wingate ate no breakfast, but after swallowingsome strong tea he turned to the foreman. "Mr. Brown, will you comewith me to try and hunt up Catharine?" he asked. 

"Yes, if we can get beyond the door, " assented Brown. "But I doubtif we can make the canyon, sir. "

"We'll have a try at it, anyway, " said the young engineer. "Ialmost doubt myself if she made it last night. "

"She's a stubborn woman, " commented Brown. 

"And has her own reasons for it, I suppose, " replied Wingate. "Butthat has nothing to do with her being lost or frozen. If somethinghad not happened I'm sure she would have come to-day, notwithstandingI scolded her yesterday, and told her I'd rather cook myself than lether run such risks. How will we go, Mr. Brown; horses or snowshoes?"

"Shoes, " said the foreman decidedly. "That snow'll be above themiddle of the biggest horse in the outfit. "

So they set forth on their tramp up the slopes, peering right andleft as they went for any indication of the absent woman. Wingate'sold grief was knocking at his heart once more. A woman lost in theappalling vastness of this great Western land was entering intohis life again. It took them a full hour to go that mile, althoughboth were experts on the shoes, but as they reached the rim of thecanyon they were rewarded by seeing a thin blue streak of smokecurling up from her lodge "chimney. " Wingate sat down in the snowsweakly. The relief had unmanned him. 

"I didn't know how much I cared, " he said, "until I knew she wassafe. She looks at me as my mother used to; her eyes are likemother's, and I loved my mother. "

It was a simple, direct speech, but Brown caught its pathos. 

"She's a good woman, " he blurted out, as they trudged along towardsthe shack. They knocked on the door. There was no reply. Then justas Wingate suggested forcing it in case she were ill and lyinghelpless within, a long, low call from the edge of the canyonstartled them. They turned and had not followed the direction fromwhich the sound came more than a few yards when they met her comingtowards them on snowshoes; in her arms she bore a few faggots, andher face, though smileless, was very welcoming. 

She opened the door, bidding them enter. It was quite warm inside, and the air of simple comfort derived from crude benches, tablesand shelves, assured them that she had not suffered. Near the firewas drawn a rough home-built couch, and on it lay in heapeddisorder a pile of gray blankets. As the two men warmed their handsat the grateful blaze, the blankets stirred. Then a small handcrept out and a small arm tossed the covers a little aside. 

"_Catharine_, " exclaimed Wingate, "have you a child here?"

"Yes, " she said simply. 

"How long is it that you have had it here?" he demanded. 

"Since before I work at your camp, " she replied. 

"Whew!" said the foreman, "I now understand why she came homenights. "

"To think I never guessed it!" murmured Wingate. Then to Catharine:"Why didn't you bring it into camp and keep it there day and nightwith you, instead of taking these dangerous tramps night andmorning?"

"It is a girl child, " she answered. 

"Well what of it?" he asked impatiently. 

"Your camp no place for girl child, " she replied, looking directlyat him. "Your men they rough, they get whisky sometimes. Theyfight. They speak bad words, what you call _swear_. I not want herhear that. I not want her see whisky man. "

"Oh, Brown!" said Wingate, turning to his companion. "What areproach! What a reproach! Here our gang is--the vanguard of thehighest civilization, but unfit for association with a littleIndian child!"

Brown stood speechless, although in his rough, honest mind he wasgoing over a list of those very "swears" she objected to, butthey were mentally directed at the whole outfit of his ruffianlyconstruction gang. He was silently swearing at them for their ownshortcomings in that very thing. 

The child on the couch stirred again. This time the firelight fellfull across the little arm. Wingate stared at it, then his eyeswidened. He looked at the woman, then back at the bare arm. It wasthe arm of a _white_ child. 

"Catharine, was your husband _white_?" he asked, in a voice thatbetrayed anxiety. 

"I got no husban', " she replied, somewhat defiantly. 

"Then--" he began, but his voice faltered. 

She came and stood between him and the couch. 

Something of the look of a she-panther came into her face, herfigure, her attitude. Her eyes lost their mournfulness and blazed ablack-red at him. Her whole body seemed ready to spring. 

"You not touch the girl child!" she half snarled. "I not let youtouch her; she _mine_, though I have no husban'!"

"I don't want to touch her, Catharine, " he said gently, trying topacify her. "Believe me, I don't want to touch her. "

The woman's whole being changed. A thousand mother-lights gleamedfrom her eyes, a thousand measures of mother-love stormed at herheart. She stepped close, very close to him and laid her smallbrown hand on his, then drawing him nearer to her said: "Yes you_do_ want to touch her; you not speak truth when you say 'no. ' You_do_ want to touch her!" With a rapid movement she flung back theblankets, then slipping her bare arm about him she bent his formuntil he was looking straight into the child's face--a face theliving miniature of his own! His eyes, his hair, his small kindlymouth, his fair, perfect skin. He staggered erect. 

"Catharine! what does it mean? What does it mean?" he criedhoarsely. 

"_Your child_--" she half questioned, half affirmed. 

"Mine? Mine?" he called, without human understanding in his voice. "Oh, Catharine! Where did you get her?"

"The shores of Kootenay Lake, " she answered. 

"Was--was--she _alone_?" he cried. 

The woman looked away, slowly shaking her head, and her voice wasvery gentle as she replied: "No, she alive a little, but _theother_, whose arms 'round her, she not alive; my people, theKootenay Indians, and I--we--we bury that other. "

For a moment there was a speaking silence, the young Wingate, withthe blessed realization that half his world had been saved for him, flung himself on his knees, and, with his arms locked about thelittle girl, was calling:

"Margie! Margie! Papa's little Margie girl! Do you remember papa?Oh, Margie! Do you? Do you?"

Something dawned in the child's eyes--something akin to a far-offmemory. For a moment she looked wonderingly at him, then put herhand up to his forehead and gently pulled a lock of his fair hairthat always curled there--an old trick of hers. Then she lookeddown at his vest pocket, slowly pulled out his watch and held it toher ear. The next minute her arms slipped round his neck. 

"Papa, " she said, "papa been away from Margie a long time. "

Young Wingate was sobbing. He had not noticed that the big, roughforeman had gone out of the shack with tear-dimmed eyes, and hadquietly closed the door behind him. 

 * * * * *

It was evening before Wingate got all the story from Catharine, forshe was slow of speech, and found it hard to explain her feelings. But Brown, who had returned alone to the camp in the morning, nowcame back, packing an immense bundle of all the tinned delicacieshe could find, which, truth to tell, were few. He knew some wordsin Kootenay, and led Catharine on to reveal the strange historythat sounded like some tale from fairyland. It appeared that thereason Catharine did not attempt to go to the camp that morning wasthat Margie was not well, so she would not leave her, but in herheart of hearts she knew young Wingate would come searching to herlodge. She loved the child as only an Indian woman can love anadopted child. She longed for him to come when she found Margiewas ill, yet dreaded that coming from the depths of her soul. Shedreaded the hour he would see the child and take it away. For themoment she looked upon his face, the night he rode over to engageher to cook, months ago, she had known he was Margie's father. Thelittle thing was the perfect mirror of him, and Catharine's strangewild heart rejoiced to find him, yet hid the child from him forvery fear of losing it out of her own life. 

After finding it almost dead in its dead mother's arms on theshore, the Indians had given it to Catharine for the reason thatshe could speak some English. They were only a passing band ofKootenays, and as they journeyed on and on, week in and week out, they finally came to Crow's Nest Mountain. Here the child fell ill, so they built Catharine a log shack, and left her with plenty offood, sufficient to last until the railway gang had worked thatfar up the Pass, when more food would be available. When she hadfinished the strange history, Wingate looked at her long andlovingly. 

"Catharine, " he said, "you were almost going to fight me onceto-day. You stood between the couch and me like a panther. Whatchanged you so that you led me to my baby girl yourself?"

"I make one last fight to keep her, " she said, haltingly. "She mineso long, I want her; I want her till I die. Then I think manytimes I see your face at camp. It look like sky when sun does notshine--all cloud, no smile, no laugh. I know you think of your babythen. Then I watch you many times. Then after while my heart issick for you, like you are my own boy, like I am your own mother. Ihate see no sun in your face. I think I not good mother to you; ifI was good mother I would give you your child; make the sun come inyour face. To-day I make last fight to keep the child. She's mine solong, I want her till I die. Then somet'ing in my heart say, 'He'slike son to you, as if he your own boy; make him glad--happy. Oh, ver' glad! Be like his own mother. Find him his baby. '"

"Bless the mother heart of her!" growled the big foreman, frowningto keep his face from twitching. 

It was twilight when they mounted the horses one of the men hadbrought up for them to ride home on, Wingate with his treasure-childhugged tightly in his arms. Words were powerless to thank the womanwho had saved half his world for him. His voice choked when hetried, but she understood, and her woman's heart was very, veryfull. 

Just as they reached the rim of the canyon Wingate turned andlooked back. His arms tightened about little Margie as his eyesrested on Catharine--as once before she was standing in thedoorway, alone; alone, and above and about her were the purpleshadows, the awful solitude of Crow's Nest Mountain. 

"Brown!" he called. "Hold on, Brown! I can't do it! I can't leaveher like that!"

He wheeled his horse about and, plunging back through the snow, rode again to her door. Her eyes radiated as she looked at him. Years had been wiped from his face since the morning. He was alaughing boy once more. 

"You are right, " he said, "I cannot keep my little girl in thatrough camp. You said it was no place for a girl child. You areright. I will send her into Calgary until my survey is over. Catharine, will you go with her, take care of her, nurse her, guard her for me? You said I was as your own son; will you be thatgood mother to me that you want to be? Will you do this for yourwhite boy?"

He had never seen her smile before. A moment ago her heart had beenbreaking, but now she knew with a great gladness that she was notonly going to keep and care for Margie, but that this laughing boywould be as a son to her for all time. No wonder Catharine of theCrow's Nest smiled!

A Red Girl's Reasoning

"Be pretty good to her, Charlie, my boy, or she'll balk sure asshooting. "

That was what old Jimmy Robinson said to his brand new son-in-law, while they waited for the bride to reappear. 

"Oh! you bet, there's no danger of much else. I'll be good to her, help me Heaven, " replied Charlie McDonald, brightly. 

"Yes, of course you will, " answered the old man, "but don't youforget, there's a good big bit of her mother in her, and, " closinghis left eye significantly, "you don't understand these Indians asI do. "

"But I'm just as fond of them, Mr. Robinson, " Charlie saidassertively, "and I get on with them too, now, don't I?"

"Yes, pretty well for a town boy; but when you have lived fortyyears among these people, as I have done; when you have had yourwife as long as I have had mine--for there's no getting over it, Christine's disposition is as native as her mother's, every bit--andperhaps when you've owned for eighteen years a daughter as dutiful, as loving, as fearless, and, alas! as obstinate as that little pieceyou are stealing away from me to-day--I tell you, youngster, you'llknow more than you know now. It is kindness for kindness, bullet forbullet, blood for blood. Remember, what you are, she will be, " andthe old Hudson Bay trader scrutinized Charlie McDonald's face likea detective. 

It was a happy, fair face, good to look at, with a certain ripple ofdimples somewhere about the mouth, and eyes that laughed out thevery sunniness of their owner's soul. There was not a severe nor yeta weak line anywhere. He was a well-meaning young fellow, happilydispositioned, and a great favorite with the tribe at Robinson'sPost, whither he had gone in the service of the Department ofAgriculture, to assist the local agent through the tedium of a longcensus-taking. 

As a boy he had had the Indian relic-hunting craze, as a youthhe had studied Indian archaeology and folk-lore, as a man heconsummated his predilections for Indianology, by loving, winningand marrying the quiet little daughter of the English trader, whohimself had married a native woman twenty years ago. The country wasall backwoods, and the Post miles and miles from even the semblanceof civilization, and the lonely young Englishman's heart had goneout to the girl who, apart from speaking a very few words ofEnglish, was utterly uncivilized and uncultured, but had withalthat marvellously innate refinement so universally possessed by thehigher tribes of North American Indians. 

Like all her race, observant, intuitive, having a horror ofridicule, consequently quick at acquirement and teachable inmental and social habits, she had developed from absolute paganindifference into a sweet, elderly Christian woman, whose brokenEnglish, quiet manner, and still handsome copper-colored face, werethe joy of old Robinson's declining years. 

He had given their daughter Christine all the advantages of his ownlearning--which, if truthfully told, was not universal; but the girlhad a fair common education, and the native adaptability toprogress. 

She belonged to neither and still to both types of the culturedIndian. The solemn, silent, almost heavy manner of the one socommingled with the gesticulating Frenchiness and vivacity of theother, that one unfamiliar with native Canadian life would find itdifficult to determine her nationality. 

She looked very pretty to Charles McDonald's loving eyes, as shereappeared in the doorway, holding her mother's hand and saying somehappy words of farewell. Personally she looked much the same as hersisters, all Canada through, who are the offspring of red and whiteparentage--olive-complexioned, gray-eyed, black-haired, with figureslight and delicate, and the wistful, unfathomable expression in herwhole face that turns one so heart-sick as they glance at the youngIndians of to-day--it is the forerunner too frequently of "the whiteman's disease, " consumption--but McDonald was pathetically in love, and thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in hislife. 

There had not been much of a wedding ceremony. The priest hadcantered through the service in Latin, pronounced the benedictionin English, and congratulated the "happy couple" in Indian, as acompliment to the assembled tribe in the little amateur structurethat did service at the post as a sanctuary. 

But the knot was tied as firmly and indissolubly as if all CharlieMcDonald's swell city friends had crushed themselves up against thechancel to congratulate him, and in his heart he was deeply thankfulto escape the flower-pelting, white gloves, rice-throwing, andponderous stupidity of a breakfast, and indeed all the regulationgimcracks of the usual marriage celebrations, and it was with ahand trembling with absolute happiness that he assisted his littleIndian wife into the old muddy buckboard that, hitched to anunderbred-looking pony, was to convey them over the first stages oftheir journey. Then came more adieus, some hand-clasping, old JimmyRobinson looking very serious just at the last, Mrs. Jimmy, stout, stolid, betraying nothing of visible emotion, and then the pony, rough-shod and shaggy, trudged on, while mutual hand-waves werekept up until the old Hudson Bay Post dropped out of sight, andthe buckboard with its lightsome load of hearts deliriously happy, jogged on over the uneven trail. 

 * * * * *

She was "all the rage" that winter at the provincial capital. Themen called her a "deuced fine little woman. " The ladies said shewas "just the sweetest wildflower. " Whereas she was really but anordinary, pale, dark girl who spoke slowly and with a strong accent, who danced fairly well, sang acceptably, and never stirred outsidethe door without her husband. 

Charlie was proud of her; he was proud that she had "taken" so wellamong his friend, proud that she bore herself so complacently inthe drawing-rooms of the wives of pompous Government officials, butdoubly proud of her almost abject devotion to him. If ever humanbeing was worshipped that being was Charlie McDonald; it couldscarcely have been otherwise, for the almost godlike strength of hispassion for that little wife of his would have mastered and melteda far more invincible citadel than an already affectionate woman'sheart. 

Favorites socially, McDonald and his wife went everywhere. Infashionable circles she was "new"--a potent charm to acquirepopularity, and the little velvet-clad figure was always the centreof interest among all the women in the room. She always dressed invelvet. No woman in Canada, has she but the faintest dash of nativeblood in her veins, but loves velvets and silks. As beef to theEnglishman, wine to the Frenchman, fads to the Yankee, so are velvetand silk to the Indian girl, be she wild as prairie grass, be she onthe borders of civilization, or, having stepped within its boundary, mounted the steps of culture even under its superficial heights. 

"Such a dolling little appil blossom, " said the wife of a localM. P. , who brushed up her etiquette and English once a year atOttawa. "Does she always laugh so sweetly, and gobble you up withthose great big gray eyes of her, when you are togetheah at home, Mr. McDonald? If so, I should think youah pooah brothah would feelhimself terrible _de trop_. "

He laughed lightly. "Yes, Mrs. Stuart, there are not two ofChristie; she is the same at home and abroad, and as for Joe, hedoesn't mind us a bit; he's no end fond of her. "

"I'm very glad he is. I always fancied he did not care for her, d'you know. "

If ever a blunt woman existed it was Mrs. Stuart. She really meantnothing, but her remark bothered Charlie. He was fond of hisbrother, and jealous for Christie's popularity. So that night whenhe and Joe were having a pipe, he said:

"I've never asked you yet what you thought of her, Joe. " A briefpause, then Joe spoke. "I'm glad she loves you. "

"Why?"

"Because that girl has but two possibilities regardinghumanity--love or hate. "

"Humph! Does she love or hate _you_?"

"Ask her. "

"You talk bosh. If she hated you, you'd get out. If she loved youI'd _make_ you get out. "

Joe McDonald whistled a little, then laughed. 

"Now that we are on the subject, I might as well ask--honestly, oldman, wouldn't you and Christie prefer keeping house alone to havingme always around?"

"Nonsense, sheer nonsense. Why, thunder, man, Christie's no end fondof you, and as for me--you surely don't want assurances from me?"

"No, but I often think a young couple--"

"Young couple be blowed! After a while when they want you and yourold surveying chains, and spindle-legged tripod telescope kickshaws, farther west, I venture to say the little woman will cry her eyesout--won't you, Christie?" This last in a higher tone, as throughclouds of tobacco smoke he caught sight of his wife passing thedoorway. 

She entered. "Oh, no, I would not cry; I never do cry, but I wouldbe heart-sore to lose you Joe, and apart from that"--a littlewickedly--"you may come in handy for an exchange some day, asCharlie does always say when he hoards up duplicate relics. "

"Are Charlie and I duplicates?"

"Well--not exactly"--her head a little to one side, and eyeingthem both merrily, while she slipped softly on to the arm ofher husband's chair--"but, in the event of Charlie's failingme"--everyone laughed then. The "some day" that she spoke of wasnearer than they thought. It came about in this wise. 

There was a dance at the Lieutenant-Governor's, and the world andhis wife were there. The nobs were in great feather that night, particularly the women, who flaunted about in new gowns and muchsplendor. Christie McDonald had a new gown also, but wore it withthe utmost unconcern, and if she heard any of the flattering remarksmade about her she at least appeared to disregard them. 

"I never dreamed you could wear blue so splendidly, " said CaptainLogan, as they sat out a dance together. 

"Indeed she can, though, " interposed Mrs. Stuart, halting in one ofher gracious sweeps down the room with her husband's privatesecretary. 

"Don't shout so, captain. I can hear every sentence you uttah--ofcourse Mrs. McDonald can wear blue--she has a morning gown of cadetblue that she is a picture in. "

"You are both very kind, " said Christie. "I like blue; it is thecolor of all the Hudson's Bay posts, and the factor's residence isalways decorated in blue. "

"Is it really? How interesting--do tell us some more of your oldhome, Mrs. McDonald; you so seldom speak of your life at the post, and we fellows so often wish to hear of it all, " said Logan eagerly. 

"Why do you not ask me of it, then?"

"Well--er, I'm sure I don't know; I'm fully interested in theInd--in your people--your mother's people, I mean, but it alwaysseems so personal, I suppose; and--a--a--"

"Perhaps you are, like all other white people, afraid to mention mynationality to me. "

The captain winced and Mrs. Stuart laughed uneasily. Joe McDonaldwas not far off, and he was listening, and chuckling, and saying tohimself, "That's you, Christie, lay 'em out; it won't hurt 'em toknow how they appear once in a while. "

"Well, Captain Logan, " she was saying, "what is it you would like tohear--of my people, or my parents, or myself?"

"All, all, my dear, " cried Mrs. Stuart clamorously. "I'll speak forhim--tell us of yourself and your mother--your father is delightful, I am sure--but then he is only an ordinary Englishman, not half asinteresting as a foreigner, or--or, perhaps I should say, a native. "

Christie laughed. "Yes, " she said, "my father often teases my mothernow about how _very_ native she was when he married her; then, howcould she have been otherwise? She did not know a word of English, and there was not another English-speaking person besides my fatherand his two companions within sixty miles. "

"Two companions, eh? one a Catholic priest and the other a winemerchant, I suppose, and with your father in the Hudson Bay, theywere good representatives of the pioneers in the New World, "remarked Logan, waggishly. 

"Oh, no, they were all Hudson Bay men. There were no rumsellers andno missionaries in that part of the country then. "

Mrs. Stuart looked puzzled. "No _missionaries_?" she repeated withan odd intonation. 

Christie's insight was quick. There was a peculiar expression ofinterrogation in the eyes of her listeners, and the girl's bloodleapt angrily up into her temples as she said hurriedly, "I knowwhat you mean; I know what you are thinking. You were wondering howmy parents were married--"

"Well--er, my dear, it seems peculiar--if there was no priest, andno magistrate, why--a--" Mrs. Stuart paused awkwardly. 

"The marriage was performed by Indian rites, " said Christie. 

"Oh, do tell me about it; is the ceremony very interesting andquaint--are your chieftains anything like Buddhist priests?" It wasLogan who spoke. 

"Why, no, " said the girl in amazement at that gentleman's ignorance. "There is no ceremony at all, save a feast. The two people justagree to live only with and for each other, and the man takes hiswife to his home, just as you do. There is no ritual to bind them;they need none; an Indian's word was his law in those days, youknow. "

Mrs. Stuart stepped backwards. "Ah!" was all she said. Logan removedhis eye-glass and stared blankly at Christie. "And did McDonaldmarry you in this singular fashion?" He questioned. 

"Oh, no, we were married by Father O'Leary. Why do you ask?"

"Because if he had, I'd have blown his brain out to-morrow. "

Mrs. Stuart's partner, who had hitherto been silent, coughed andbegan to twirl his cuff stud nervously, but nobody took any noticeof him. Christie had risen, slowly, ominously--risen, with thedignity and pride of an empress. 

"Captain Logan, " she said, "what do you dare to say to me? What doyou dare to mean? Do you presume to think it would not have beenlawful for Charlie to marry me according to my people's rites? Doyou for one instant dare to question that my parents were not aslegally--"

"Don't, dear, don't, " interrupted Mrs. Stuart hurriedly; "it is badenough now, goodness knows; don't make--" Then she broke off blindly. Christie's eyes glared at the mumbling woman, at her uneasy partner, at the horrified captain. Then they rested on the McDonald brothers, who stood within earshot, Joe's face scarlet, her husband's white asashes, with something in his eyes she had never seen before. It wasJoe who saved the situation. Stepping quickly across towards hissister-in-law, he offered her his arm, saying, "The next dance isours, I think, Christie. "

Then Logan pulled himself together, and attempted to carry Mrs. Stuart off for the waltz, but for once in her life that lady hadlost her head. "It is shocking!" she said, "outrageously shocking!I wonder if they told Mr. McDonald before he married her!" Thenlooking hurriedly round, she too saw the young husband's face--andknew that they had not. 

"Humph! deuced nice kettle of fish--and poor old Charlie has alwaysthought so much of honorable birth. "

Logan thought he spoke in an undertone, but "poor old Charlie" heardhim. He followed his wife and brother across the room. "Joe, " hesaid, "will you see that a trap is called?" Then to Christie, "Joewill see that you get home all right. " He wheeled on his heel thenand left the ball-room. 

Joe _did_ see. 

He tucked a poor, shivering, pallid little woman into a cab, andwound her bare throat up in the scarlet velvet cloak that washanging uselessly over her arm. She crouched down beside him, saying, "I am so cold, Joe; I am so cold, " but she did not seem toknow enough to wrap herself up. Joe felt all through this long drivethat nothing this side of Heaven would be so good as to die, and hewas glad when the little voice at his elbow said, "What is he soangry at, Joe?"

"I don't know exactly, dear, " he said gently, "but I think it waswhat you said about this Indian marriage. "

"But why should I not have said it? Is there anything wrong aboutit?" she asked pitifully. 

"Nothing, that I can see--there was no other way; but Charlie isvery angry, and you must be brave and forgiving with him, Christie, dear. "

"But I did never see him like that before, did you?"

"Once. "

"When?"

"Oh, at college, one day, a boy tore his prayer book in half, andthrew it into the grate, just to be mean, you know. Our mother hadgiven it to him at his confirmation. "

"And did he look so?"

"About, but it all blew over in a day--Charlie's tempers are shortand brisk. Just don't take any notice of him; run off to bed, andhe'll have forgotten it by the morning. "

They reached home at last. Christie said goodnight quietly, goingdirectly to her room. Joe went to his room also, filled a pipe andsmoked for an hour. Across the passage he could hear her slipperedfeet pacing up and down, up and down the length of her apartment. There was something panther-like in those restless footfalls, ameaning velvetyness that made him shiver, and again he wished hewere dead--or elsewhere. 

After a time the hall door opened, and someone came upstairs, alongthe passage, and to the little woman's room. As he entered, sheturned and faced him. 

"Christie, " he said harshly, "do you know what you have done?"

"Yes, " taking a step nearer him, her whole soul springing up intoher eyes, "I have angered you, Charlie, and--"

"Angered me? You have disgraced me; and, moreover, you havedisgraced yourself and both your parents. "

"_Disgraced_?"

"Yes, _disgraced_; you have literally declared to the whole citythat your father and mother were never married, and that you are thechild of--what shall we call it--love? certainly not legality. "

Across the hallway sat Joe McDonald, his blood freezing; but itleapt into every vein like fire at the awful anguish in the littlevoice that cried simply, "Oh! Charlie!"

"How could you do it, how could you do it, Christie, without shameeither for yourself or for me, let alone your parents?"

The voice was like an angry demon's--not a trace was there in it ofthe yellow-haired, blue-eyed, laughing-lipped boy who had drivenaway so gaily to the dance five hours before. 

"Shame? Why should I be ashamed of the rites of my people any morethan you should be ashamed of the customs of yours--of a marriagemore sacred and holy than half of your white man's mockeries. "

It was the voice of another nature in the girl--the love and thepleading were dead in it. 

"Do you mean to tell me, Charlie--you who have studied my race andtheir laws for years--do you mean to tell me that, because there wasno priest and no magistrate, my mother was not married? Do you meanto say that all my forefathers, for hundreds of years back, have beenillegally born? If so, you blacken my ancestry beyond--beyond--beyondall reason. "

"No, Christie, I would not be so brutal as that; but your fatherand mother live in more civilized times. Father O'Leary has been atthe post for nearly twenty years. Why was not your father straightenough to have the ceremony performed when he _did_ get the chance?"

The girl turned upon him with the face of a fury. "Do you suppose, "she almost hissed, "that my mother would be married according toyour _white_ rites after she had been five years a wife, and I hadbeen born in the meantime? No, a thousand times I say, _no_. Whenthe priest came with his notions of Christianizing, and talkedto them of re-marriage by the Church, my mother arose and said, 'Never--never--I have never had but this one husband; he has hadnone but me for wife, and to have you re-marry us would be to say asmuch to the whole world as that we had never been married before. [Fact. ] You go away; _I_ do not ask that _your_ people be re-married;talk not so to me. I _am_ married, and you or the Church cannot door undo it. '"

"Your father was a fool not to insist upon the law, and so was thepriest. "

"Law? _My_ people have _no_ priest, and my nation cringes not tolaw. Our priest is purity, and our law is honor. Priest? Was there a_priest_ at the most holy marriage know to humanity--that stainlessmarriage whose offspring is the God you white men told my paganmother of?"

"Christie--you are _worse_ than blasphemous; such a profane remarkshows how little you understand the sanctity of the Christianfaith--"

"I know what I _do_ understand; it is that you are hating me becauseI told some of the beautiful customs of my people to Mrs. Stuart andthose men. "

"Pooh! who cares for them? It is not them; the trouble is they won'tkeep their mouths shut. Logan's a cad and will toss the whole taleabout at the club to-morrow night; and as for the Stuart woman, I'dlike to know how I'm going to take you to Ottawa for presentationand the opening, while she is blabbing the whole miserable scandalin every drawing-room, and I'll be pointed out as a romantic fool, and you--as worse; I _can't_ understand why your father didn't tellme before we were married; I at least might have warned you never tomention it. " Something of recklessness rang up through his voice, just as the panther-likeness crept up from her footsteps and couchedherself in hers. She spoke in tones quiet, soft, deadly. 

"Before we were married! Oh! Charlie, would it have--made--any--difference?"

"God knows, " he said, throwing himself into a chair, his blonde hairrumpled and wet. It was the only boyish thing about him now. 

She walked towards him, then halted in the centre of the room. "Charlie McDonald, " she said, and it was as if a stone had spoken, "look up. " He raised his head, startled by her tone. There was athreat in her eyes that, had his rage been less courageous, hispride less bitterly wounded, would have cowed him. 

"There was no such time as that before our marriage, for we _are notmarried now_. Stop, " she said, outstretching her palms against himas he sprang to his feet, "I tell you we are not married. Why shouldI recognize the rites of your nation when you do not acknowledge therites of mine? According to your own words, my parents should havegone through your church ceremony as well as through an Indiancontract; according to _my_ words, _we_ should go through an Indiancontract as well as through a church marriage. If their union isillegal, so is ours. If you think my father is living in dishonorwith my mother, my people will think I am living in dishonor withyou. How do I know when another nation will come and conquer you asyou white men conquered us? And they will have another marriage riteto perform, and they will tell us another truth, that you are not myhusband, that you are but disgracing and dishonoring me, that youare keeping me here, not as your wife, but as your--your--_squaw_. "

The terrible word had never passed her lips before, and the bloodstained her face to her very temples. She snatched off her weddingring and tossed it across the room, saying scornfully, "That thingis as empty to me as the Indian rites to you. "

He caught her by the wrists; his small white teeth were lockedtightly, his blue eyes blazed into hers. 

"Christine, do you dare doubt my honor towards you? _you_, whom Ishould have died for; do you _dare_ to think I have kept you here, not as my wife, but--"

"Oh, God! You are hurting me; you are breaking my arm, " she gasped. 

The door was flung open, and Joe McDonald's sinewy hands clinchedlike vices on his brother's shoulders. 

"Charlie, you're mad, mad as the devil. Let go of her this minute. "

The girl staggered backwards as the iron fingers loosed her wrists. "Oh! Joe, " she cried, "I am not his wife, and he says I amborn--nameless. "

"Here, " said Joe, shoving his brother towards the door. "Godownstairs till you can collect your senses. If ever a being actedlike an infernal fool, you're the man. "

The young husband looked from one to the other, dazed by his wife'sinsult, abandoned to a fit of ridiculously childish temper. Blindas he was with passion, he remembered long afterwards seeingthem standing there, his brother's face darkened with a scowlof anger--his wife, clad in the mockery of her ball dress, herscarlet velvet cloak half covering her bare brown neck and arms, her eyes like flames of fire, her face like a piece of sculpturedgraystone. 

Without a word he flung himself furiously from the room, andimmediately afterwards they heard the heavy hall door bang behindhim. 

"Can I do anything for you, Christie?" asked her brother-in-lawcalmly. 

"No, thank you--unless--I think I would like a drink of water, please. "

He brought her up a goblet filled with wine; her hand did not eventremble as she took it. As for Joe, a demon arose in his soul as henoticed she kept her wrists covered. 

"Do you think he will come back?" she said. 

"Oh, yes, of course; he'll be all right in the morning. Now go tobed like a good little girl, and--and, I say, Christie, you can callme if you want anything; I'll be right here, you know. "

"Thank you, Joe; you are kind--and good. "

He returned then to his apartment. His pipe was out, but he pickedup a newspaper instead, threw himself into an armchair, and in ahalf-hour was in the land of dreams. 

When Charlie came home in the morning, after a six-mile walk intothe country and back again, his foolish anger was dead and buried. Logan's "Poor old Charlie" did not ring so distinctly in his ears. Mrs. Stuart's horrified expression had faded considerably from hisrecollection. He thought only of that surprisingly tall, dark girl, whose eyes looked like coals, whose voice pierced him like aflint-tipped arrow. Ah, well, they would never quarrel again likethat, he told himself. She loved him so, and would forgive him afterhe had talked quietly to her, and told her what an ass he was. Shewas simple-minded and awfully ignorant to pitch those old Indianlaws at him in her fury, but he could not blame her; oh, no, hecould not for one moment blame her. He had been terribly severe andunreasonable, and the horrid McDonald temper had got the better ofhim; and he loved her so. Oh! He loved her so! She would surely feelthat, and forgive him, and-- He went straight to his wife's room. The blue velvet evening dress lay on the chair into which he hadthrown himself when he doomed his life's happiness by those twowords, "God knows. " A bunch of dead daffodils and her slippers wereon the floor, everything--but Christie. 

He went to his brother's bedroom door. 

"Joe, " he called, rapping nervously thereon; "Joe, wake up; where'sChristie, d'you know?"

"Good Lord, no, " gasped that youth, springing out of his armchairand opening the door. As he did so a note fell from off the handle. Charlie's face blanched to his very hair while Joe read aloud, hisvoice weakening at every word:--

"DEAR OLD JOE, --I went into your room at daylight to get thatpicture of the Post on your bookshelves. I hope you do not mind, butI kissed your hair while your slept; it was so curly, and yellow, and soft, just like his. Good-bye, Joe. 

"CHRISTIE. "

And when Joe looked into his brother's face and saw the anguishsettle in those laughing blue eyes, the despair that drove thedimples away from that almost girlish mouth; when he realized thatthis boy was but four-and-twenty years old, and that all his futurewas perhaps darkened and shadowed for ever, a great, deep sorrowarose in his heart, and he forgot all things, all but the agony thatrang up through the voice of the fair, handsome lad as he staggeredforward, crying, "Oh! Joe--what shall I do--what shall I do!"

 * * * * *

It was months and months before he found her, but during all thattime he had never known a hopeless moment; discouraged he oftenwas, but despondent, never. The sunniness of his ever-boyish heartradiated with warmth that would have flooded a much deeper gloomthan that which settled within his eager young life. Suffer? ah! yes, he suffered, not with locked teeth and stony stoicism, not with themasterful self-command, the reserve, the conquered bitterness of thestill-water sort of nature, that is supposed to run to such depths. He tried to be bright, and his sweet old boyish self. He would laughsometimes in a pitiful, pathetic fashion. He took to petting dogs, looking into their large, solemn eyes with his wistful, questioningblue ones; he would kiss them, as women sometimes do, and call them"dear old fellow, " in tones that had tears; and once in the courseof his travels while at a little way-station, he discovered a hugeSt. Bernard imprisoned by some mischance in an empty freight car;the animal was nearly dead from starvation, and it seemed to salvehis own sick heart to rescue back the dog's life. Nobody claimed thebig starving creature, the train hands knew nothing of its owner, and gladly handed it over to its deliverer. "Hudson, " he calledit, and afterwards when Joe McDonald would relate the story of hisbrother's life he invariably terminated it with, "And I reallybelieve that big lumbering brute saved him. " From what, he was neverto say. 

But all things end, and he heard of her at last. She had neverreturned to the Post, as he at first thought she would, but had goneto the little town of B----, in Ontario, where she was making herliving at embroidery and plain sewing. 

The September sun had set redly when at last he reached theoutskirts of the town, opened up the wicket gate, and walked up theweedy, unkept path leading to the cottage where she lodged. 

Even through the twilight, he could see her there, leaning on therail of the verandah--oddly enough she had about her shoulders thescarlet velvet cloak she wore when he had flung himself so madlyfrom the room that night. 

The moment the lad saw her his heart swelled with a sudden heat, burning moisture leapt into his eyes, and clogged his long, boyishlashes. He bounded up the steps--"Christie, " he said, and the wordscorched his lips like audible flame. 

She turned to him, and for a second stood magnetized by hispassionately wistful face; her peculiar grayish eyes seemed todrink the very life of his unquenchable love, though the tears thatsuddenly sprang into his seemed to absorb every pulse in his bodythrough those hungry, pleading eyes of his that had, oh! so oftenbeen blinded by her kisses when once her whole world lay in theirblue depths. 

"You will come back to me, Christie, my wife? My wife, you will letme love you again?"

She gave a singular little gasp, and shook her head. "Don't, oh!don't, " he cried piteously. "You will come to me, dear? it is allsuch a bitter mistake--I did not understand. Oh! Christie, I did notunderstand, and you'll forgive me, and love me again, won'tyou--won't you?"

"No, " said the girl with quick, indrawn breath. 

He dashed the back of his hand across his wet eyelids. His lips weregrowing numb, and he bungled over the monosyllable "Why?"

"I do not like you, " she answered quietly. 

"God! Oh! God, what is there left?"

She did not appear to hear the heart-break in his voice; she stoodlike one wrapped in sombre thought; no blaze, no tear, nothing inher eyes; no hardness, no tenderness about her mouth. The wind wasblowing her cloak aside, and the only visible human life in herwhole body was once when he spoke the muscles of her brown armseemed to contract. 

"But, darling, you are mine--_mine_--we are husband and wife! Oh, heaven, you _must_ love me, and you _must_ come to me again. "

"You cannot _make_ me come, " said the icy voice, "neither church, nor law, nor even"--and the vice softened--"nor even love can makea slave of a red girl. "

"Heaven forbid it, " he faltered. "No, Christie, I will never claimyou without your love. What reunion would that be? But oh, Christie, you are lying to me, you are lying to yourself, you are lying toheaven. "

She did not move. If only he could touch her he felt as sure of heryielding as he felt sure there was a hereafter. The memory of thetimes when he had but to lay his hand on her hair to call a mostpassionate response from her filled his heart with a torture thatchoked all words before they reached his lips; at the thought ofthose days he forgot she was unapproachable, forgot how forbiddingwere her eyes, how stony her lips. Flinging himself forward, hisknee on the chair at her side, his face pressed hardly in the foldsof the cloak on her shoulder, he clasped his arms about her with aboyish petulance, saying, "Christie, Christie, my little girl wife, I love you, I love you, and you are killing me. "

She quivered from head to foot as his fair, wavy hair brushed herneck, his despairing face sank lower until his cheek, hot as fire, rested on the cool, olive flesh of her arm. A warm moisture oozed upthrough her skin, and as he felt its glow he looked up. Her teeth, white and cold, were locked over her under lip, and her eyes wereas gray stones. 

Not murderers alone know the agony of a death sentence. 

"Is it all useless? all useless, dear?" he said, with lips starvingfor hers. 

"All useless, " she repeated. "I have no love for you now. Youforfeited me and my heart months ago, when you said _those twowords_. "

His arms fell away from her wearily, he arose mechanically, heplaced his little gray checked cap on the back of his yellow curls, the old-time laughter was dead in the blue eyes that now lookedscared and haunted, the boyishness and the dimples crept away forever from the lips that quivered like a child's; he turned from her, but she had looked once into his face as the Law Giver must havelooked at the land of Canaan outspread at his feet. She watchedhim go down the long path and through the picket gate, she watchedthe big yellowish dog that had waited for him lumber up on to itsfeet--stretch--then follow him. She was conscious of but two things, the vengeful lie in her soul, and a little space on her arm that hiswet lashes had brushed. 

 * * * * *

It was hours afterwards when he reached his room. He had saidnothing, done nothing--what use were words or deeds? Old JimmyRobinson was right; she had "balked" sure enough. 

What a bare, hotelish room it was! He tossed off his coat and satfor ten minutes looking blankly at the sputtering gas jet. Thenhis whole life, desolate as a desert, loomed up before him withappalling distinctness. Throwing himself on the floor besidehis bed, with clasped hands and arms outstretched on the whitecounterpane, he sobbed. "Oh! God, dear God, I thought you loved me;I thought you'd let me have her again, but you must be tired of me, tired of loving me too. I've nothing left now, nothing! it doesn'tseem that I even have you to-night. "

He lifted his face then, for his dog, big and clumsy and yellow, was licking at his sleeve. 

The Envoy Extraordinary

There had been a great deal of trouble in the Norris family, andfor weeks old Bill Norris had gone about scowling as blackly as athunder-cloud, speaking to no one but his wife and daughter, andoftentimes muttering inaudible things that, however, had the toneof invective; and accompanied, as these mutterings were, with amenacing shake of his burley head, old Bill finally grew to be anacquaintance few desired. 

Mrs. Norris showed equal, though not similar, signs of mentaldisturbance; for, womanlike, she clothed her worry in placidity andsilence. Her kindly face became drawn and lined; she laughed lessfrequently. She never went "neighboring" or "buggy-riding" withold Bill now. But the trim farmhouse was just as spotless, just asbeautifully kept, the cooking just as wholesome and homelike, thelinen as white, the garden as green, the chickens as fat, the geeseas noisy, as in the days when her eyes were less grave and her lipsunknown to sighs. And what was it all about but the simple matterof a marriage--Sam's marriage? Sam, the big, genial, curly-headedonly son of the house of Norris, who saw fit to take unto himself asa life partner tiny, delicate, college-bred Della Kennedy, whotaught school over on the Sixth Concession, and knew more aboutmaking muslin shirtwaists than cooking for the threshers, couldquote from all the mental and moral philosophers, could wrestle withFrench and Latin verbs, and had memorized half the things Tennysonand Emerson had ever written, but could not milk a cow or churn upa week's supply of butter if the executioner stood ready with hisaxe to chop off her pretty yellow mop of a head in case she failed. How old Billy stormed when Sam started "keeping company" with her!

"Nice young goslin' fer you to be a-goin' with!" he scowled whenSam would betake himself towards the red gate every evening afterchores were done. "Nice gal fer you to bring home to help yermother; all she'll do is to play May Queen and have the hull lot ofus a-trottin' to wait on her. You'll marry a farmer's gal, _I_ say, one that's brung up like yerself and yer mother and me, or I tellyer yer shan't have one consarned acre of this place. I'll leavethe hull farm to yer sister Jane's man. _She_ married somethin'like--decent, stiddy, hard-working man is Sid Simpson, and _he'll_git what land I have to leave. "

"I quite know that, dad, " Sam blazed forth, irritably; "so does he. That's what he married Janie for--the whole township knows that. He's never given her a kind word, or a holiday, or a new dress, since they were married--eight years. She slaves and toils, and herich as any man need be; owns three farms already, money in thebank, cattle, horses--everything. But look at Janie; she looks asold as mother. I pity _his_ son, if he ever has one. Thank heaven, Janie has no children!"

"Come, come, father--Sam!" a patient voice would interrupt, andMrs. Norris would appear at the door, vainly endeavoring to makepeace. "I'll own up to both of you I'd sooner have a farmer'sdaughter for mine-in-law than Della Kennedy. But, father, he ain'tmarried yet, and--"

"Ain't married, eh?" blurted in old Bill. "But he's a-goin' tomarry her. But I'll tell you both right here, she'll never set footin my house, ner I in her'n. Sam ken keep her, but what on, I don'tknow. He gits right out of this here farm the day he marries her, and he don't come back, not while I'm a-livin'. "

It was all this that made old Billy Norris morose, and Mrs. Norrissilent and patient and laughless, for Sam married the despised"gosling" right at harvest time, when hands were so scarce thatfarmers wrangled and fought, day in and day out, to get one singleman to go into the field. 

This was Sam's golden opportunity. His father's fields stood yellowwith ripening grain to be cut on the morrow, but he deliberatelyhired himself out to a neighbor, where he would get good wagesto start a little home with; for, farmer-like, old Billy Norrisnever paid his son wages. Sam was supposed to work for nothing buthis clothes and board as reward, and a possible slice of the farmwhen the old man died, while a good harvest hand gets board andhigh wages, to boot. This then was the hour to strike, and themorning the grain stood ready for the reaper Sam paused at theoutside kitchen door at sunrise. 

"Mother, " he said, "I've got to have her. I'm going to marry herto-day, and to-morrow start working for Mr. Willson, who will pay meenough to keep a wife. I'm sorry, mother, but--well, I've got tohave her. Some day you'll know her, and you'll love her, I know youwill; and if there's ever any children--"

But Mrs. Norris had clutched him by the arm. "Sammy, " shewhispered, "your father will be raging mad at your going, andharvest hands so scarce. I _know_ he'll never let me go near you, never. But if there's ever any children, Sammy, you just come foryour mother, and I'll go to you and her _without_ his letting. "

Then with one of the all too few kisses that are ever given orreceived in a farmhouse life, she let him go. The storm burst atbreakfast time when Sam did not appear, and the poor mother triedto explain his absence, as only a mother will. Old Billy waxedsuspicious, then jumped at facts. The marriage was bad enough, but this being left in the lurch at the eleventh hour, his son'svaluable help transferred from the home farm to Mr. Willson's, withwhom he always quarreled in church, road, and political matters, wastoo much. 

"But, father, you never paid him wages, " ventured the mother. 

"Wages? Wages to one's own son, that one has raised and fed andshod from the cradle? Wages, when he knowed he'd come in fer partof the farm when I'd done with it? Who in consarnation ever givestheir son wages?"

"But, father, you told him if he married her he was never to havethe farm--that you'd leave it to Sid, that he was to get right offthe day he married her. "

"An' Sid'll get it--bet yer life he will--fer I ain't got no sonno more. A sneakin' hulk that leaves me with my wheat standin' an'goes over to help that Methodist of a Willson is no son of mine. I ain't never had a son, and you ain't, neither; remember that, Marthy--don't you ever let me ketch you goin' a-near them. We'redone with Sam an' his missus. You jes' make a note of that. " Andold Billy flung out to his fields like a general whose forces hadfled. 

It was but a tiny, two-room shack, away up in the back lots, thatSam was able to get for Della, but no wayfarer ever passed up theside road but they heard her clear, young voice singing like athrush; no one ever met Sam but he ceased whistling only to greetthem. He proved invaluable to Mr. Willson, for after the harvestwas in and the threshing over, there was the root crop and theapple crop, and eventually Mr. Willson hired him for the entireyear. Della, to the surprise of the neighborhood, kept on with herschool until Christmas. 

"She's teachin' instid of keepin' Sam's house, jes' to git moneyfer finery, you bet!" sneered old Billy. But he never knew thatevery copper for the extra term was put carefully away, and waspaid out for a whole year's rent in advance on a gray littletwo-room house, and paid by a very proud little yellow-haired bride. She had insisted upon this before her marriage, for she laughinglysaid, "No wife ever gets her way afterwards. "

"I'm not good at butter-making, Sam, " she said, "but I _can_ makemoney teaching, and for this first year _I_ pay the rent. " And shedid. 

And the sweet, brief year swung on through its seasons, untilone brown September morning the faint cry of a little human lambfloated through the open window of the small gray house on theback lots. Sam did not go to Willson's to work that day, butstayed home, playing the part of a big, joyful, clumsy nurse, hisroughened hands gentle and loving, his big rugged heart burstingwith happiness. It was twilight, and the gray shadows were creepinginto the bare little room, touching with feathery fingers a tangledmop of yellow curls that aureoled a pillowed head that was not nowfilled with thoughts of Tennyson and Emerson and frilly muslinshirtwaists. That pretty head held but two realities--Sammy, whistling robin-like as he made tea in the kitchen, and the littlehuman lamb hugged up on her arm. 

But suddenly the whistling ceased, and Sammy's voice, thrillingwith joy, exclaimed:

"Oh, mother!"

"Mrs. Willson sent word to me. Your father's gone to thevillage, and I ran away, Sammy boy, " whispered Mrs. Norris, eagerly. "I just ran away. Where's Della and--the baby?"

"In here, mother, and--bless you for coming!" said the big fellow, stepping softly towards the bedroom. But his mother was therebefore him, her arms slipping tenderly about the two small beingson the bed. 

"It wasn't my fault, daughter, " she said, tremulously. 

"I know it, " faintly smiled Della. "Just these last few hours Iknow I'd stand by this baby boy of mine here until the JudgementDay, and so I now know it must have nearly broken your heart notto stand by Sammy. "

"Well, grandmother!" laughed Sam, "what do you think of the newNorris?"

"Grandmother?" gasped Mrs. Norris. "Why, Sammy, _am I agrandmother_? Grandmother to this little sweetheart?" And the proudold arms lifted the wee "new Norris" right up from its mother'sarms, and every tiny toe and finger was kissed and crooned over, while Sam shyly winked at Della and managed to whisper, "You'llsee, girl, that dad will come around now; but he can just keep outof _our house_. There are two of us that can be harsh. I'm notgoing to come at _his_ first whistle. "

Della smiled to herself, but said nothing. Much wisdom had come toher within the last year, with the last day--wisdom not acquiredwithin the covers of books, nor yet beneath college roofs, and onetruth she had mastered long ago--that

 "To help and to heal a sorrow Love and silence are always best. "

But late that night, when Martha Norris returned home, anotherstorm broke above her hapless head. Old Billy sat on the kitchensteps waiting for her, frowning, scowling, muttering. "Where haveyou been?" he demanded, glaring at her, although some innerinstinct told him what her answer would be. 

"I've been to Sammy's, " she said, in a peculiarly still voice, "andI'm going again to-morrow. " Then with shoulders more erect and eyescalmer than they had been for many months, she continued: "And I'mgoing again the next day, and the next. Billy, you and I've got agrandson--a splendid, fair, strong boy, and--"

"What!" snapped old Billy. "A grandson! I got a grandson, an' noperson told me afore? Not even that there sneak Sam, cuss him! Healways was too consarned mean to live. A grandson? I'm a-goin' overtermorrer, sure's I'm alive. "

"No use for you to go, Billy, " said Mrs. Norris, with marvellousdiplomacy for such a simple, unworldly farmer's wife to suddenlyacquire. "Sammy wouldn't let you set foot on his place. He wouldn'tlet you put an eye or a finger on that precious baby--not for thewhole earth. "

"What! Not _me_, the little chap's _grandfather_?" blurted oldBilly in a rage. "I'm a-goin' to see that baby, that's all thereis to it. I tell yer, I'm a-goin'. "

"No use, father; you'll only make things worse, " sighed Sam'smother, plaintively; but in her heart laughter gurgled like aspring. To the gift of diplomacy Mrs. Norris was fast adding theart of being an actress. "If you go there Sam'll set the dog onyou. I _know_ he will, from the way he was talking, " she concluded. 

"Oh! got a _dog_, have they? Well, I bet they've got no _cow_, "sneered Billy. Then after a meaning pause: "I say Marthy, _have_they got a cow?"

"No, " replied Mrs. Norris, shortly. 

"_No cow_, an' a sick woman and a baby--_my_ grandchild--in thehouse? Now ain't that jes' like that sneak Sam? They'll jes' killthat baby atween them, they're that igner'nt. Hev they got ennymilk fer them two babbling kids, Della an' the baby--mygrandchild?"

"No!" snapped Mrs. Norris, while through her mind echoed someterrifying lines she had heard as a child:

 "All liars dwell with him in hell, And many more who cursed and swore. "

"An' there's that young Shorthorn of ours, Marthy. Couldn't wespare her?" he asked with a pathetic eagerness. "We've got eightother cows to milk. Can't we spare her? If you think Sam'll set thedog on _me_, I'll have her driv over in the mornin'. Jim'll takeher. "

"I don't think it's any use, Bill; but you can try it, " remarkedMrs. Norris, her soul singing within her like a celestial choir. 

 * * * * *

"Where are you driving that cow to?" yelled Sam from the kitchendoor, at sunrise the following morning. "Take her out of there!You're driving her into my yard, right over my cabbages. "

But Jim, the Norris' hired man, only grinned, and proceeding withhis driving, yelled back:

"Cow's yourn, Sam. Yer old man sent it--a present to yer missus andthe babby. "

"You take and drive that cow back again!" roared Sam. "And tell mydad I won't have hide nor hair of her on my place. "

Back went the cow. 

"Didn't I tell you?" mourned Mrs. Norris. "Sam's that stubborn andcontrary. It's no use, Billy; he just doesn't care for his poor oldfather nor mother any more. "

"By the jumping Jiminy Christmas! I'll _make_ him care!" thunderedold Billy. "I'm a-goin' ter see that grandchild of mine. " Thenfollowed a long silence. 

"I say, Marthy, how are they fixed in the house?" he questioned, after many moments of apparently brown study. 

"Pretty poor, " answered Sam's mother, truthfully this time. 

"Got a decent stove, an' bed, an' the like?" he finally asked. 

"Stove seems to cook all right, but the bed looks just like strawtick--not much good, I'd say, " responded Mrs. Norris, drearily. 

"A straw tick!" fairly yelled old Billy. "A straw tick fer mygrandson ter sleep on? Jim, you fetch that there cow here, rightter the side door. "

"What are you going to do?" asked Martha, anxiously. 

"I'll show yer!" blurted old Billy. And going to his own room, hedragged off all the pretty patchwork quilts above his neatly-madebed, grabbed up the voluminous feather-bed, staggered with it inhis arms down the hall, through the side door, and flung it on tothe back of the astonished cow. 

"Now you, Jim, drive that there cow over to Sam's, and if you darebring her back agin, I'll hide yer with the flail till yer can'tstand up. "

"Me drive that lookin' circus over to Sam's?" sneered Jim. "I'llquit yer place first. Yer kin do it yerself;" and the hired manturned on his lordly heel and slouched over to the barn. 

"That'll be the best way, Billy, " urged Sam's mother. "Do ityourself. "

"I'll do it too, " old Billy growled. "I ain't afraid of no dog onfour legs. Git on there, bossy! Git on, I say!" and the ridiculouscavalcade started forth. 

For a moment Martha Norris watched the receding figure throughblinding tears. "Oh, Sammy, I'm going to have you back again! I'mgoing to have my boy once more!" she half sobbed. Then sitting downon the doorsill, she laughed like a schoolgirl until the cow withher extraordinary burden, and old Billy in her wake, disappeared upthe road. [This incident actually occurred on an Ontario farmwithin the circle of the author's acquaintance. ]

From the pillow, pretty Della could just see out of the low window, and her wide young eyes grew wider with amazement as the gate swungopen and the "circus, " as Jim called it, entered. 

"Sammy!" she called, "Sammy! For goodness sake, what's that cominginto our yard?"

Instantly Sam was at the door. 

"Well, if that don't beat anything I ever saw!" he exclaimed. Then"like mother, like son, " he, too, sat down on the doorsill andlaughed as only youth and health and joy can laugh, for, headingstraight for the door was the fat young Shorthorn, saddled with anenormous feather-bed, and plodding at her heels was old Billy Norris, grinning sheepishly. 

It took just three seconds for the hands of father and son to meet. "How's my gal an' my grandson?" asked the old farmer, excitedly. 

"Bully, just bully, both of them!" smiled Sam, proudly. Then moreseriously, "Ah, dad, you old tornado, you! Here you fired thunderat us for a whole year, pretty near broke my mother's heart, andmade my boy's little mother old before she ought to be. But you'vequit storming now, dad. I know it from the look of you. "

"Quit forever, Sam, " replied old Billy, "fer these mother-wimmendon't never thrive where there's rough weather, somehow. They'reall fer peace. They're worse than King Edward an' Teddy Rooseveltfer patchin' up rows, an' if they can't do it no other way, theyjes' hike along with a baby, sort o' treaty of peace like. Yes, Iguess I thundered some; but, Sam, boy, there ain't a deal of harmin thunder--but _lightnin'_, now that's the worst, but I once hearda feller say that feathers was non-conductive. " Then with a slysmile, "An' Sam, you'd better hustle an' git the gal an' the babyon ter this here feather-bed, or they may be in danger of gittin'struck, fer there's no tellin' but I may jes' start an' stormthunder an' _lightnin'_ this time. "

A Pagan in St. Paul's Cathedral

Iroquois Poetess' Impressions in London's Cathedral

It is a far cry from a wigwam to Westminster, from a prairie trailto the Tower Bridge, and London looks a strange place to the RedIndian whose eyes still see the myriad forest trees, even as theygaze across the Strand, and whose feet still feel the clingingmoccasin even among the scores of clicking heels that hurry alongthe thoroughfares of this camping-ground of the paleface. 

So this is the place where dwells the Great White Father, ruler ofmany lands, lodges, and tribes, in the hollow of whose hands is thepeace that rests between the once hostile red man and white. Theycall him the King of England, but to us, the powerful Iroquoisnation of the north, he is always the "Great White Father. " Foronce he came to us in our far-off Canadian reserves, and with hisown hand fastened decorations and medals on the buckskin coats ofour oldest chiefs, just because they and their fathers used theirtomahawks in battle in the cause of England. 

So I, one of his loyal allies, have come to see his camp, known tothe white man as London, his council which the whites call hisParliament, where his sachems and chiefs make the laws of histribes, and to see his wigwam, known to the palefaces as BuckinghamPalace, but to the red man as the "Tepee of the Great WhiteFather. " And this is what I see:--

 What the Indian Sees. 

Lifting toward the sky are vast buildings of stone, not the samekind of stone from which my forefathers fashioned their carvenpipes and corn-pounders, but a grayer, grimier rock that would nottake the polish we give by fingers dipped in sturgeon oil, and longdays of friction with fine sand and deer-hide. 

I stand outside the great palace wigwam, the huge council-house bythe river. My seeing eyes may mark them, but my heart's eyes arelooking beyond all this wonderment, back to the land I have leftbehind me. I picture the tepees by the far Saskatchewan; therethe tent poles, too, are lifting skyward, and the smoke ascendingthrough them from the smouldering fires within curls softly on thesummer air. Against the blurred sweep of horizon other camps etchtheir outlines, other bands of red men with their herds of wildcattle have sought the river lands. I hear the untamed hoofsthundering up the prairie trail. 

But the prairie sounds are slipping away, and my ears catch othervoices that rise above the ceaseless throb about me--voices thatare clear, high, and calling; they float across the city like themusic of a thousand birds of passage beating their wings throughthe night, crying and murmuring plaintively as they journeynorthward. They are the voices of St. Paul's calling, callingme--St. Paul's where the paleface worships the Great Spirit, andthrough whose portals he hopes to reach the happy hunting grounds. 

 The Great Spirit. 

As I entered its doorways it seemed to me to be the everlastingabiding-place of the white man's Great Spirit. 

The music brooded everywhere. It beat in my ears like the far-offcadences of the Sault Ste. Marie rapids, that rise and leap andthrob--like a storm hurling through the fir forest--like thedistant rising of an Indian war-song; it swept up those mightyarchways until the gray dome above me faded, and in its placethe stars came out to look down, not on these paleface kneelingworshippers, but on a band of stalwart, sinewy, copper-coloureddevotees, my own people in my own land, who also assembled to dohonour to the Manitou of all nations. 

The deep-throated organ and the boy's voices were gone; I heardinstead the melancholy incantations of our own pagan religionists. The beautiful dignity of our great sacrificial rites seemed tosettle about me, to enwrap me in its garment of solemnity andprimitive stateliness. 

 Beat of the Drum. 

The atmosphere pulsed with the beat of the Indian drum, theeerie penetrations of the turtle rattle that set the time of thedancers' feet. Dance? It is not a dance, that marvellously slow, serpentine-like figure with the soft swish, swish of moccasinedfeet, and the faint jingling of elks'-teeth bracelets, keepingrhythm with every footfall. It is not a dance, but an invocationof motion. Why may we not worship with the graceful movement ofour feet? The paleface worships by moving his lips and tongue;the difference is but slight. 

The altar-lights of St. Paul's glowed for me no more. In theirplace flared the camp fires of the Onondaga "long-house, " and theresinous scent of the burning pine drifted across the fetid Londonair. I saw the tall, copper-skinned fire-keeper of the Iroquoiscouncil enter, the circle of light flung fitfully against the blacksurrounding woods. I have seen their white bishops, but none soregal, so august as he. His garb of fringed buckskin and ermine wasno more grotesque than the vestments worn by the white preachers inhigh places; he did not carry a book or a shining golden symbol, but from his splendid shoulders was suspended a pure white lifelessdog. 

Into the red flame the strong hands gently lowered it, scores ofreverent, blanketed figures stood silent, awed, for it is thehighest, holiest festival of the year. Then the wild, strange chantarose--the great pagan ritual was being intoned by the fire-keeper, his weird, monotonous tones voicing this formula:

"The Great Spirit desires no human sacrifice, but we, His children, must give to Him that which is nearest our hearts and nearest ourlives. Only the spotless and stainless can enter into His presence, only that which is purified by fire. So--this white dog--amember of our household, a co-habitant of our wigwam, and on thesmoke that arises from the purging fires will arise also thethanksgivings of all those who desire that the Great Spirit in Hishappy hunting grounds will forever smoke His pipe of peace, forpeace is between Him and His children for all time. "

The mournful voice ceases. Again the hollow pulsing of the Indiandrum, the purring, flexible step of cushioned feet. I lift my head, which has been bowed on the chair before me. It is St. Paul's afterall--and the clear boy-voices rise above the rich echoes of theorgan. 

As It Was in the Beginning

They account for it by the fact that I am a Redskin, but I amsomething else, too--I am a woman. 

I remember the first time I saw him. He came up the trail with someHudson's Bay trappers, and they stopped at the door of my father'stepee. He seemed even then, fourteen years ago, an old man; his hairseemed just as thin and white, his hands just as trembling andfleshless as they were a month since, when I saw him for what I prayhis God is the last time. 

My father sat in the tepee, polishing buffalo horns and smoking; mymother, wrapped in her blanket, crouched over her quill-work, on thebuffalo-skin at his side; I was lounging at the doorway, idling, watching, as I always watched, the thin, distant line of sky andprairie; wondering, as I always wondered, what lay beyond it. Thenhe came, this gentle old man with his white hair and thin, paleface. He wore a long black coat, which I now know was the sign ofhis office, and he carried a black leather-covered book, which, inall the years I have known him, I have never seen him without. 

The trappers explained to my father who he was, the Great Teacher, the heart's Medicine Man, the "Blackcoat" we had heard of, whobrought peace where there was war, and the magic of whose black bookbrought greater things than all the Happy Hunting Grounds of ourancestors. 

He told us many things that day, for he could speak the Cree tongue, and my father listened, and listened, and when at last they left us, my father said for him to come and sit within the tepee again. 

He came, all the time he came, and my father welcomed him, but mymother always sat in silence at work with the quills; my mothernever liked the Great "Blackcoat. "

His stories fascinated me. I used to listen intently to the tale ofthe strange new place he called "heaven, " of the gold crown, of thewhite dress, of the great music; and then he would tell of thatother strange place--hell. My father and I hated it; we feared it, we dreamt of it, we trembled at it. Oh, if the "Blackcoat" wouldonly cease to talk of it! Now I know he saw its effect upon us, andhe used it as a whip to lash us into his new religion, but even thenmy mother must have known, for each time he left the tepee she wouldwatch him going slowly away across the prairie; then when he wasdisappearing into the far horizon she would laugh scornfully, andsay:

"If the white man made this Blackcoat's hell, let him go to it. Itis for the man who found it first. No hell for Indians, just HappyHunting Grounds. Blackcoat can't scare me. "

And then, after weeks had passed, one day as he stood at the tepeedoor he laid his white, old hand on my head and said to my father:"Give me this little girl, chief. Let me take her to the missionschool; let me keep her, and teach her of the great God and Hiseternal heaven. She will grow to be a noble woman, and returnperhaps to bring her people to the Christ. "

My mother's eyes snapped. "No, " she said. It was the first word sheever spoke to the "Blackcoat. " My father sat and smoked. At the endof a half-hour he said:

"I am an old man, Blackcoat. I shall not leave the God of my fathers. I like not your strange God's ways--all of them. I like not His twonew places for me when I am dead. Take the child, Blackcoat, andsave her from hell. "

 * * * * *

The first grief of my life was when we reached the mission. Theytook my buckskin dress off, saying I was now a little Christian girland must dress like all the white people at the mission. Oh, how Ihated that stiff new calico dress and those leather shoes. But, little as I was, I said nothing, only thought of the time when Ishould be grown, and do as my mother did, and wear the buckskinsand the blanket. 

My next serious grief was when I began to speak the English, thatthey forbade me to use any Cree words whatever. The rule of theschool was that any child heard using its native tongue must geta slight punishment. I never understood it, I cannot understandit now, why the use of my dear Cree tongue could be a matter forcorrection or an action deserving punishment. 

She was strict, the matron of the school, but only justly so, forshe had a heart and a face like her brother's, the "Blackcoat. "I had long since ceased to call him that. The trappers at thepost called him "St. Paul, " because, they told me, of hisself-sacrificing life, his kindly deeds, his rarely beautiful oldface; so I, too, called him "St. Paul, " thought oftener "FatherPaul, " though he never liked the latter title, for he was aProtestant. But as I was his pet, his darling of the whole school, he let me speak of him as I would, knowing it was but my heartspeaking in love. His sister was a widow, and mother to a laughingyellow-haired boy of about my own age, who was my constant playmateand who taught me much of English in his own childish way. I usedto be fond of this child, just as I was fond of his mother and ofhis uncle, my "Father Paul, " but as my girlhood passed away, aswomanhood came upon me, I got strangely wearied of them all; Ilonged, oh, God, how I longed for the old wild life! It came withmy womanhood, with my years. 

What mattered it to me now that they had taught me all theirways?--their tricks of dress, their reading, their writing, theirbooks. What mattered it that "Father Paul" loved me, that thetraders at the post called me pretty, that I was a pet of all, fromthe factor to the poorest trapper in the service? I wanted my ownpeople, my own old life, my blood called out for it, but they alwayssaid I must not return to my father's tepee. I heard them talkamongst themselves of keeping me away from pagan influences; theytold each other that if I returned to the prairies, the tepees, Iwould degenerate, slip back to paganism, as other girls had done;marry, perhaps, with a pagan--and all their years of labor andteaching would be lost. 

I said nothing, but I waited. And then one night the feelingovercame me. I was in the Hudson's Bay store when an Indian camein from the north with a large pack of buckskin. As they unrolledit a dash of its insinuating odor filled the store. I went overand leaned above the skins a second, then buried my face in them, swallowing, drinking the fragrance of them, that went to my headlike wine. Oh, the wild wonder of that wood-smoked tan, thesubtilty of it, the untamed smell of it! I drank it into my lungs, my innermost being was saturated with it, till my mind reeledand my heart seemed twisted with a physical agony. My childhoodrecollections rushed upon me, devoured me. I left the store in astrange, calm frenzy, and going rapidly to the mission house Iconfronted my Father Paul and demanded to be allowed to go "home, "if only for a day. He received the request with the same refusal andthe same gentle sigh that I had so often been greeted with, but thistime the desire, the smoke-tan, the heart-ache, never lessened. 

Night after night I would steal away by myself and go to the borderof the village to watch the sun set in the foothills, to gaze at thefar line of sky and prairie, to long and long for my father's lodge. And Laurence--always Laurence--my fair-haired, laughing, childplaymate, would come calling and calling for me: "Esther, where areyou? We miss you; come in, Esther, come in with me. " And if I didnot turn at once to him and follow, he would come and place hisstrong hands on my shoulders and laugh into my eyes and say, "Truant, truant, Esther; can't _we_ make you happy?"

My old childhood playmate had vanished years ago. He was a tall, slender young man now, handsome as a young chief, but with laughingblue eyes, and always those yellow curls about his temples. He wasmy solace in my half-exile, my comrade, my brother, until one nightit was, "Esther, Esther, can't _I_ make you happy?"

I did not answer him; only looked out across the plains and thoughtof the tepees. He came close, close. He locked his arms about me, and with my face pressed up to his throat he stood silent. I feltthe blood from my heart sweep to my very finger-tips. I loved him. O God, how I loved him! In a wild, blind instant it all came, justbecause he held me so and was whispering brokenly, "Don't leave me, don't leave me, Esther; _my_ Esther, my child-love, my playmate, mygirl-comrade, my little Cree sweetheart, will you go away to yourpeople, or stay, stay for me, for my arms, as I have you now?"

No more, no more the tepees; no more the wild stretch of prairie, the intoxicating fragrance of the smoke-tanned buckskin; no more thebed of buffalo hide, the soft, silent moccasin; no more the darkfaces of my people, the dulcet cadence of the sweet Cree tongue--onlythis man, this fair, proud, tender man who held me in his arms, inhis heart. My soul prayed his great white God, in that moment, thatHe would let me have only this. It was twilight when we re-enteredthe mission gate. We were both excited, feverish. Father Paul wasreading evening prayers in the large room beyond the hallway; hissoft, saint-like voice stole beyond the doors, like a benedictionupon us. I went noiselessly upstairs to my own room and sat thereundisturbed for hours. 

The clock downstairs struck one, startling me from my dreams ofhappiness, and at the same moment a flash of light attracted me. Myroom was in an angle of the building, and my window looked almostdirectly down into those of Father Paul's study, into which at thatinstant he was entering, carrying a lamp. "Why, Laurence, " I heardhim exclaim, "what are you doing here? I thought, my boy, you werein bed hours ago. "

"No, uncle, not in bed, but in dreamland, " replied Laurence, arisingfrom the window, where evidently he, too, had spent the night hoursas I had done. 

Father Paul fumbled about a moment, found his large black book, which for once he seemed to have got separated from, and was turningto leave, when the curious circumstance of Laurence being there atso unusual an hour seemed to strike him anew. "Better go to sleep, my son, " he said simply, then added curiously, "Has anythingoccurred to keep you up?"

Then Laurence spoke: "No, uncle, only--only, I'm happy, that's all. "

Father Paul stood irresolute. Then: "It is--?"

"Esther, " said Laurence quietly, but he was at the old man's side, his hand was on the bent old shoulder, his eyes proud and appealing. 

Father Paul set the lamp on the table, but, as usual, one hand heldthat black book, the great text of his life. His face was paler thanI had ever seen it--graver. 

"Tell me of it, " he requested. 

I leaned far out of my window and watched them both. I listened withmy very heart, for Laurence was telling him of me, of his love, ofthe new-found joy of that night. 

"You have said nothing of marriage to her?" asked Father Paul. 

"Well--no; but she surely understands that--"

"Did you speak of _marriage_?" repeated Father Paul, with a harshring in his voice that was new to me. 

"No, uncle, but--"

"Very well, then, very well. "

There was a brief silence. Laurence stood staring at the old man asthough he were a stranger; he watched him push a large chair up tothe table, slowly seat himself; then mechanically following hismovements, he dropped on to a lounge. The old man's head bent low, but his eyes were bright and strangely fascinating. He began:

"Laurence, my boy, your future is the dearest thing to me of allearthly interests. Why you _can't_ marry this girl--no, no, sit, situntil I have finished, " he added, with raised voice, as Laurencesprang up, remonstrating. "I have long since decided that you marrywell; for instance, the Hudson's Bay factor's daughter. "

Laurence broke into a fresh, rollicking laugh. "What, uncle, " hesaid, "little Ida McIntosh? Marry that little yellow-haired fluffball, that kitten, that pretty little dolly?"

"Stop, " said Father Paul. Then with a low, soft persuasiveness, "Sheis _white_, Laurence. "

My lover started. "Why, uncle, what do you mean?" he faltered. 

"Only this, my son: poor Esther comes of uncertain blood; would itdo for you--the missionary's nephew, and adopted son, you mightsay--to marry the daughter of a pagan Indian? Her mother ishopelessly uncivilized; her father has a dash of Frenchsomewhere--half-breed, you know, my boy, half-breed. " Then, withstill lower tone and half-shut, crafty eyes, he added: "The blood isa bad, bad mixture, _you_ know that; you know, too, that I am veryfond of the girl, poor dear Esther. I have tried to separate herfrom evil pagan influences; she is the daughter of the Church; Iwant her to have no other parent; but you never can tell what lurksin a caged animal that has once been wild. My whole heart is withthe Indian people, my son; my whole heart, my whole life, has beendevoted to bringing them to Christ, _but it is a different thing tomarry with one of them_. "

His small old eyes were riveted on Laurence like a hawk's on a rat. My heart lay like ice in my bosom. 

Laurence, speechless and white, stared at him breathlessly. 

"Go away somewhere, " the old man was urging; "to Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal; forget her, then come back to Ida McIntosh. A union of theChurch and Hudson's Bay will mean great things, and may ultimatelyresult in my life's ambition, the civilization of this entire tribe, that we have worked so long to bring to God. "

I listened, sitting like one frozen. Could those words have beenuttered by my venerable teacher, by him whom I revered as I wouldone of the saints in his own black book? Ah, there was no mistakingit. My white father, my life-long friend who pretended to love me, to care for my happiness, was urging the man I worshipped to forgetme, to marry with the factor's daughter--because of what? Of my redskin; my good, old, honest pagan mother; my confiding French-Indianfather. In a second all the care, the hollow love he had given mesince my childhood, were as things that never existed. I hated thatold mission priest as I hated his white man's hell. I hated hislong, white hair; I hated his thin, white hands; I hated his body, his soul, his voice, his black book--oh, how I hated the veryatmosphere of him. 

Laurence sat motionless, his face buried in his hands, but the oldman continued, "No, no; not the child of that pagan mother; youcan't trust her, my son. What would you do with a wife who might anyday break from you to return to her prairies and her buckskins? _Youcan't trust her_. " His eyes grew smaller, more glittering, morefascinating then, and leaning with an odd, secret sort of movementtowards Laurence, he almost whispered, "Think of her silent ways, her noiseless step; the girl glides about like an apparition; herquick fingers, her wild longings--I don't know why, but with all myfondness for her, she reminds me sometimes of a strange--_snake_. "

Laurence shuddered, lifted his face, and said hoarsely: "You'reright, uncle; perhaps I'd better not; I'll go away, I'll forget her, and then--well, then--yes, you are right, it _is_ a different thingto marry one of them. " The old man arose. His feeble fingers stillclasped his black book; his soft white hair clung about his foreheadlike that of an Apostle; his eyes lost their peering, craftyexpression; his bent shoulders resumed the dignity of a ministerof the living God; he was the picture of what the trader calledhim--"St. Paul. "

"Good-night, son, " he said. 

"Good-night, uncle, and thank you for bringing me to myself. "

They were the last words I ever heard uttered by either that oldarch-fiend or his weak, miserable kinsman. Father Paul turned andleft the room. I watched his withered hand--the hand I had so oftenfelt resting on my head in holy benedictions--clasp the door-knob, turn it slowly, then, with bowed head and his pale face wrapped inthought, he left the room--left it with the mad venom of my hatepursuing him like the very Evil One he taught me of. 

What were his years of kindness and care now? What did I care forhis God, his heaven, his hell? He had robbed me of my native faith, of my parents, of my people, of this last, this life of love thatwould have made a great, good woman of me. God! how I hated him!

I crept to the closet in my dark little room. I felt for the bundleI had not looked at for years--yes, it was there, the buckskin dressI had worn as a little child when they brought me to the mission. Itucked it under my arm and descended the stairs noiselessly. I wouldlook into the study and speak good-bye to Laurence; then I would--

I pushed open the door. He was lying on the couch where a short timepreviously he had sat, white and speechless, listening to FatherPaul. I moved towards him softly. God in heaven, he was alreadyasleep. As I bent over him the fullness of his perfect beautyimpressed me for the first time; his slender form, his curving mouththat almost laughed even in sleep, his fair, tossed hair, hissmooth, strong-pulsing throat. God! how I loved him!

Then there arose the picture of the factor's daughter. I hated her. I hated her baby face, her yellow hair, her whitish skin. "She shallnot marry him, " my soul said. "I will kill him first--kill hisbeautiful body, his lying, false heart. " Something in my heartseemed to speak; it said over and over again, "Kill him, kill him;she will never have him then. Kill him. It will break Father Paul'sheart and blight his life. He has killed the best of you, of yourwomanhood; kill _his_ best, his pride, his hope--his sister's son, his nephew Laurence. " But how? how?

What had that terrible old man said I was like? A _strange snake_. A snake? The idea wound itself about me like the very coils of aserpent. What was this in the beaded bag of my buckskin dress? Thislittle thing rolled in tan that my mother had given me at partingwith the words, "Don't touch much, but some time maybe you want it!"Oh! I knew well enough what it was--a small flint arrow-head dippedin the venom of some _strange snake_. 

I knelt beside him and laid my hot lips on his hand. I worshippedhim, oh, how, how I worshipped him! Then again the vision of _her_baby face, _her_ yellow-hair--I scratched his wrist twice with thearrow-tip. A single drop of red blood oozed up; he stirred. I turnedthe lamp down and slipped out of the room--out of the house. 

 * * * * *

I dream nightly of the horrors of the white man's hell. Why did theyteach me of it, only to fling me into it?

Last night as I crouched beside my mother on the buffalo-hide, DanHenderson, the trapper, came in to smoke with my father. He said oldFather Paul was bowed with grief, that with my disappearance I wassuspected, but that there was no proof. Was it not merely a snakebite?

They account for it by the fact that I am a Redskin. 

They seem to have forgotten I am a woman. 

The Legend of Lillooet Falls

No one could possibly mistake the quiet little tap at the door. Itcould be given by no other hand west of the Rockies save that of myold friend The Klootchman. I dropped a lap full of work and sprangto open the door; for the slanting rains were chill outside, albeitthe December grass was green and the great masses of English ivyclung wet and fresh as in summer about the low stone wall that ranbetween my verandah and the street. 

"Kla-how-ya, Tillicum, " I greeted, dragging her into the warmth andcomfort of my "den, " and relieving her of her inseparable basket, and removing her rain-soaked shawl. Before she spoke she gave thatpeculiar gesture common to the Indian woman from the Atlanticto the Pacific. She lifted both hands and with each forefingersmoothed gently along her forehead from the parting of her hair tothe temples. It is the universal habit of the red woman, and simplymeans a desire for neatness in her front locks. 

I busied myself immediately with the teakettle, for, like all herkind, The Klootchman dearly loves her tea. 

The old woman's eyes sparkled as she watched the welcome brewing, while she chatted away in half English, half Chinook, telling meof her doings in all these weeks that I had not seen her. But itwas when I handed her a huge old-fashioned breakfast cup fairlybrimming with tea as strong as lye that she really described herjourneyings. 

She had been north to the Skeena River, south to the great "Fair"at Seattle, but, best of all seemingly to her, was her trip intothe interior. She had been up the trail to Lillooet in the great"Cariboo" country. It was my turn then to have sparkling eyes, forI traversed that inexpressibly beautiful trail five years ago, andthe delight of that journey will remain with me for all time. 

"And, oh! Tillicum, " I cried, "have your good brown ears actuallylistened to the call of the falls across the canyon--the Falls ofLillooet?"

"My ears have heard them whisper, laugh, weep, " she replied inChinook. 

"Yes, " I answered, "they do all those things. They have magicvoices--those dear, far-off falls!"

At the word "magic" her keen eyes snapped, she set her empty cupaside and looked at me solemnly. 

"Then you know the story--the strange tale?" she asked almostwhisperingly. 

I shook my head. This was always the crucial moment with myKlootchman, when her voice lowers, and she asks if you know things. You must be diplomatic, and never question her in turn. If you doher lips will close in unbreakable silence. 

"I have heard no story, but I have heard the Falls 'whisper, laughand weep. ' That is enough for me, " I said, with seemingindifference. 

"What do you see when you look at them from across the canyon?" sheasked. "Do they look to you like anything else but falling water?"

I thought for a moment before replying. Memory seemed to hold upagainst an indistinct photograph of towering fir-crested heights, where through a broken ridge of rock a shower of silvery threadscascaded musically down, down, down, until they lost themselves inthe mighty Fraser, that hurled itself through the yawning canyonstretched at my feet. I have never seen such slender threads ofglowing tissue save on early morning cobwebs at sun-up. 

"The Falls look like cobwebs, " I said, as the memory touched me. "Millions of fine misty cobwebs woven together. "

"Then the legend must be true, " she uttered, half to herself. Islipped down on my treasured wolf-skin rug near her chair, and withhands locked about my knees, sat in silence, knowing it was the oneand only way to lure her to speech. She arose, helped herself tomore tea, and with the toe of her beaded moccasin idly stroked oneof the wolf-skin paws. "Yes, " she said, with some decision, "theIndian men of magic say that the falls are cobwebs twisted andbraided together. "

I nodded, but made no comment; then her voice droned into thebroken English, that, much as I love it, I must leave to thereader's imagination. "Indian mothers are strange, " she began. I nodded again. 

"Yes, they are strange, and there is a strange tie between themand their children. The men of magic say they can _see_ that tie, though you and I cannot. It is thin, fine silvery as a cobweb, butstrong as the ropes of wild vine that swing down the great canyons. No storm ever breaks those vines; the tempests that drag the giantfirs and cedars up by their roots, snap their branches and breaktheir boles, never break the creeping vines. They may be torn fromtheir strongholds, but in the young months of the summer the vinewill climb up, and cling again. _Nothing_ breaks it. So is thecobweb tie the Men of Magic see between the Indian mother and herchild. 

"There was a time when no falls leapt and sang down the heights atLillooet, and in those days our men were very wild and warlike; butthe women were gentle and very beautiful, and they loved and livedand bore children as women have done before, and since. 

"But there was one, more gentle, more beautiful than all others ofthe tribe. 'Be-be, ' our people call her; it is the Chinook word for'a kiss. ' None of our people knew her real name; but it was a kissof hers that made this legend, so as 'Be-be' we speak of her. 

"She was a mother-woman, but save for one beautiful girl-child, herfamily of six were all boys, splendid, brave boys, too, but thisone treasured girl-child they called 'Morning-mist. ' She was littleand frail and beautiful, like the clouds one sees at daybreakcircling about the mountain peaks. Her father and her brothersloved her, but the heart of Be-be, her mother, seemed wrapped roundand about that misty-eyed child. 

"'I love you, ' the mother would say many times a day, as she caughtthe girl-child in her arms. 'And I love you, ' the girl-child wouldanswer, resting for a moment against the warm shoulder. 'LittleFlower, ' the woman would murmur, 'thou art morning to me, thou artgolden mid-day, thou art slumbrous nightfall to my heart. '

"So these two loved and lived, mother and daughter, made for eachother, shaped into each other's lives as the moccasin is shaped tothe foot. 

"Then came that long, shadowed, sunless day, when Be-be, returningfrom many hours of ollallie picking, her basket filled to the brimwith rich fruit, her heart reaching forth to her home even beforeher swift feet could traverse the trail, found her husband andher boys stunned with a dreadful fear, searching with wild eyes, hurrying feet, and grief-wrung hearts for her little 'Morning-child, 'who had wandered into the forest while her brothers played--theforest which was deep and dark and dangerous, --and had not returned. "

The Klootchman's voice ceased. For a long moment she gazed straightbefore her, then looking at me said:

"You have heard the Falls of Lillooet weep?" I nodded. 

"It is the weeping of that Indian mother, sobbing through thecenturies, that you hear. " She uttered the words with a cadenceof grief in her voice. 

"Hours, nights, days, they searched for the morning-child, " shecontinued. "And each moment of that unending agony to themother-woman is repeated to-day in the call, the wail, theeverlasting sobbing of the falls. At night the wolves howled upthe canyon. 'God of my fathers, keep safe my Morning-child' themother would implore. In the glare of day eagles poised, andvultures wheeled above the forest, their hungry claws, theirunblinking eyes, their beaks of greed shining in the sunlight. 'God of my fathers, keep safe my Morning-child' was again wrungfrom the mother's lips. For one long moon, that dawned, andshone and darkened, that mother's heart lived out its torture. Then one pale daybreak a great fleet of canoes came down theFrazer River. Those that paddled were of a strange tribe, theyspoke in a strange tongue, but their hearts were human, and theirskins were of the rich copper-color of the Upper Lillooet country. As they steered downstream, running the rapids, braving thewhirlpools, they chanted, in monotone:

 "'We have a lost child A beautiful lost child. We love this lost child, But the heart of the child Calls the mother of the child. Come and claim this lost child. '

"The music of the chant was most beautiful, but no music in theworld of the white man's Tyee could equal that which rang throughthe heart of Be-be, the Indian mother-woman. 

"Heart upon heart, lips upon lips, the Morning-child and themother caught each other in embrace. The strange tribe told of howthey had found the girl-child wandering fearfully in the forest, crouching from the claws of eagles, shrinking from the horror ofwolves, but the mother with her regained treasure in her armsbegged them to cease their tales. 'I have gone through agoniesenough, oh, my friends, ' she cried aloud. 'Let me rest from torturenow. ' Then her people came and made a great feast and potlatch forthis strange Upper Lillooet tribe, and at the feast Be-be arose, and, lifting the girl-child to her shoulder, she commanded silenceand spoke:

"'O Sagalie Tyee (God of all the earth), You have given back to memy treasure; take my tears, my sobs, my happy laughter, my joy--takethe cobweb chains that bind my Morning-child and me--make themsing to others, that they may know my gratitude. O Sagalie Tyee, make them sing. ' As she spoke, she kissed the child. At that momentthe Falls of Lillooet came like a million strands, dashing andgleaming down the canyon, sobbing, laughing, weeping, calling, singing. You have listened to them. "

The Klootchman's voice was still. Outside, the rains still slantedgently, like a whispering echo of the far-away falls. "Thank you, Tillicum of mine; it is a beautiful legend, " I said. She did notreply until, wrapped about in her shawl, she had clasped my handin good-bye. At the door she paused. "Yes, " she said--"and it istrue. " I smiled to myself. I love my Klootchman. She is so _very_Indian. 

Her Majesty's Guest

[Author's Note. --The "Onondaga Jam" occurred late in the seventies, and this tale is founded upon actual incidents in the life of theauthor's father, who was Forest Warden on the Indian Reserve. ]

I have never been a good man, but then I have never pretended to beone, and perhaps that at least will count in my favor in the daywhen the great dividends are declared. 

I have been what is called "well brought up" and I would give someyears of my life to possess now the money spent on my education;how I came to drop from what I should have been to what I am wouldscarcely interest anyone--if indeed I were capable of detailing theprocess, which I am not. I suppose I just rolled leisurely downhill like many another fellow. 

My friends, however, still credit me with one virtue; that is anabsolute respect for my neighbor's wife, a feeling which, however, does not extend to his dollars. His money is mine if I can get it, and to do myself justice I prefer getting it from him honestly, atleast without sufficient dishonesty to place me behind prison bars. 

Some experience has taught me that when a man is reduced to gettinghis living, as I do, by side issues and small deals, there is nobetter locality for him to operate than around the borders of someIndian Reserve. 

The pagan Indian is an unsuspicious fool. You can do him up rightand left. The Christian Indian is as sharp as a fox, and with alittle gloved handling he will always go in with you on a few lumberand illicit whiskey deals, which means that you have the confidenceof his brethren and their dollars at the same time. 

I had outwitted the law for six years. I had smuggled more liquorinto the Indian Bush on the Grand River Reserve and drawn moretimber out of it to the Hamilton and Brantford markets than anyforty dealers put together. Gradually, the law thinned the wholelot out--all but me; but I was slippery as an eel and my bottles ofwhiskey went on, and my loads of ties and timber came off, untilevery officer and preacher in the place got up and demanded aninspection. 

The Government at Ottawa awoke, stretched, yawned, then printedsome flaring posters and stuck them around the border villages. Theposters were headed by a big print of the British Coat of Arms, and some large type beneath announced terrible fines and heavyimprisonments for anyone caught hauling Indian timber off theReserve, or hauling whiskey on to it. Then the Government rubbedits fat palms together, settled itself in its easy chair, andsnored again. 

I? Oh, I went on with my operations. 

And at Christmas time Tom Barrett arrived on the scene. Not much ofan event, you'd say if you saw him, still less if you heard him. According to himself, he knew everything and could do everything inthe known world; he was just twenty-two and as obnoxiously fresh athing as ever boasted itself before older men. 

He was the old missionary's son and had come up from college atMontreal to help his father preach salvation to the Indians onSundays, and to swagger around week-days in his brand newclerical-cut coat and white tie. 

He enjoyed what is called, I believe, "deacon's orders. " They tellme he was recently "priested, " to use their straight English Churchterm, and is now parson of a swell city church. Well! they can havehim. I'll never split on him, but I could tell them some thingsabout Tom Barrett that would soil his surplice--at least in myopinion, but you never can be sure when even religious people willmake a hero out of a rogue. 

The first time I ever saw him he came into "Jake's" one night, quite late. We were knocked clean dumb. "Jake's" isn't the placeyou would count on seeing a clerical-cut coat in. 

It's not a thoroughly disreputable place, for Jake has a decentenough Indian wife; but he happens also to have a cellar which hasa hard name for illicit-whiskey supplies, though never once has thelaw, in its numerous and unannounced visits to the shanty, eversucceeded in discovering barrel or bottle. I consider myself apretty smart man, but Jake is cleverer than I am. 

When young Barrett came in that night, there was a clatter of hidingcups. "Hello, boys, " he said, and sat down wearily opposite me, leaning his arms on the table between us like one utterly done out. 

Jake, it seemed, had the distinction of knowing him; so he saidkind of friendly-like, "Hello, parson--sick?"

"Sick? Sick nothing, " said Barrett, "except sick to death of thisplace. And don't 'parson' me! I'm 'parson' on Sundays; the rest ofthe six days I'm Tom Barrett--Tom, if you like. "

We were dead silent. For myself, I thought the fellow cleancrazy; but the next moment he had turned half around, and with aquick, soft, coaxing movement, for all the world like a woman, heslipped his arm around Jake's shoulders, and said, "Say, Jake, don't let the fellows mind me, " Then in a lower tone--"What haveyou got to drink?"

Jake went white-looking and began to talk of some cider he'd got inthe cellar; but Barrett interrupted with, "Look here, Jake, justdrop that rot; I know all about _you_. " He tipped a half wink atthe rest of us, but laid his fingers across his lips. "Come, oldman, " he wheedled like a girl, "you don't know what it is to bedragged away from college and buried alive in this Indian bush. Thegovernor's good enough, you know--treats me white and all that--butyou know what he is on whiskey. I tell you I've got a throat aslong and dry as a fence rail--"

No one spoke. 

"You'll save my life if you do, " he added, crushing a bank noteinto Jake's hand. 

Jake looked at me. The same thought flashed on us both; if we couldget this church student on our side--Well! Things would be easyenough and public suspicion never touch us. Jake turned, resurrected the hidden cups, and went down cellar. 

"You're Dan McLeod, aren't you?" suggested Barrett, leaning acrossthe table and looking sharply at me. 

"That's me, " I said in turn, and sized him up. I didn't like hisface; it was the undeniable face of a liar--small, uncertain eyes, set together close like those of a fox, a thin nose, a narrow, womanish chin that accorded with his girlish actions of coaxing, and a mouth I didn't quite understand. 

Jake had come up with the bottle, but before he could put it on thetable Barrett snatched it like a starving dog would a hunk of meat. 

He peered at the label, squinting his foxy eyes, then laughed up atJake. 

"I hope you don't sell the Indians _this_, " he said, tapping thecapsule. 

No, Jake never sold a drop of whiskey to Indians, --the law, youknow, was very strict and--

"Oh, I don't care whatever else you sell them, " said Barrett, "buttheir red throats would never appreciate fine twelve-year-old likethis. Come, boys. "

We came. 

"So you're Dan McLeod, " he continued after the first long pull, "I've heard about you, too. You've got a deck of cards in yourpocket--haven't you? Let's have a game. "

I looked at him, and though, as I said in the beginning, I'm not agood man, I felt honestly sorry for the old missionary and his wifeat that moment. 

"It's no use, " said the boy, reading my hesitation. "I've brokenloose. I must have a slice of the old college life, just forto-night. "

I decided the half-cut of Indian blood on his mother's side wasshowing itself; it was just enough to give Tom a good red flavoringand a rare taste for gaming and liquor. 

We played until daylight, when Barrett said he must make his sneakhome, and reaching for his wide-brimmed, soft felt preacher's hat, left--having pocketed twenty-six of our good dollars, swallowedunnumbered cups of twelve-year-old and won the combined respect ofeveryone at Jake's. 

The next Sunday Jake went to church out of curiosity. He said TomBarrett "officiated" in a surplice as white as snow and with a faceas sinless as your mother's. He preached most eloquently againstthe terrible evil of the illicit liquor trade, and implored hisIndian flock to resist this greatest of all pitfalls. Jake evenseemed impressed as he told us. 

But Tom Barrett's "breaking loose for once" was like any otherman's. Night after night saw him at Jake's, though he neverplayed to win after that first game. As the weeks went on, he gotanxious-looking; his clerical coat began to grow seedy, his whiteties uncared for; he lost his fresh, cheeky talk, and the climaxcame late in March when one night I found him at Jake's sittingalone, his face bowed down on the table above his folded arms, andsomething so disheartened in his attitude that I felt sorry forthe boy. Perhaps it was that I was in trouble myself that day; mybiggest "deal" of the season had been scented by the officers andthe chances were they would come on and seize the five barrelsof whiskey I had been as many weeks smuggling into the Reserve. However it was, I put my hand on his shoulder, and told him tobrace up, asking at the same time what was wrong. 

"Money, " he answered, looking up with kind of haggard eyes. "Dan, Imust have money. City bills, college debts--everything has rolledup against me. I daren't tell the governor, and he couldn't help meanyway, and I can't go back for another term owing every man in myclass. " He looked suicidal. And then I made the plunge I'd beenthinking on all day. 

"Would a hundred dollars be any good to you?" I eyed him hard as Isaid it, and sat down in my usual place, opposite him. 

"Good?" he exclaimed, half rising. "It would be an eternalgodsend. " His foxy eyes glittered. I thought I detected greed inthem; perhaps it was only relief. 

I told him it was his if he would only help me, and making sure wewere quite alone, I ran off a hurried account of my "deal, " thenproposed that he should "accidentally" meet the officers near theborder, ring in with them as a parson would be likely to do, tellthem he suspicioned the whiskey was directly at the opposite sideof the Reserve to where I really had stored it, get them wild-goosechasing miles away, and give me a chance to clear the stuff andmyself as well; in addition to the hundred I would give him twentyper cent. On the entire deal. He changed color and the sweat stoodout on his forehead. 

"One hundred dollars this time to-morrow night, " I said. He didn'tmove. "And twenty per cent. One hundred dollars this time to-morrownight, " I repeated. 

He began to weaken. I lit my pipe and looked indifferent, thoughI knew I was a lost man if he refused--and informed. Suddenly hestretched his hand across the table, impulsively, and closed itover mine. I knew I had him solid then. 

"Dan, " he choked up, "it's a terrible thing for a divinity studentto do; but--" his fingers tightened nervously. "I'm with you!" Thenin a moment, "Find some whiskey, Dan. I'm done up. "

He soon got braced enough to ask me who was in the deal, and whattimber we expected to trade for. When I told him Lige Smith andJack Jackson were going to help me, he looked scared and asked meif I thought they would split on him. He was so excited I thoughthim cowardly, but the poor devil had reason enough, I supposed, towant to keep the transaction from the ears of his father, or worsestill--the bishop. He seemed easier when I assured him the boyswere square, and immensely gratified at the news that I had alreadytraded six quarts of the stuff for over a hundred dollars' worth ofcordwood. 

"We'll never get it across the river to the markets, " he saiddolefully. "I came over this morning in a canoe. Ice is all out. "

"What about the Onondaga Jam?" I said. He winked. 

"That'll do. I'd forgotten it, " he answered, and chirped up rightaway like a kid. 

But I hadn't forgotten the Jam. It had been a regular gold-mine tome all that open winter, when the ice froze and thawed every weekand finally jammed itself clean to the river bottom in the throatof the bend up at Onondaga, and the next day the thermometer fellto eleven degrees below zero, freezing it into a solid block thatbridged the river for traffic, and saved my falling fortunes. 

"And where's the whiskey hidden?" he asked after awhile. 

"No you don't, " I laughed. "Parson or pal, no man living knows orwill know where it is till he helps me haul it away. I'll trustnone of you. "

"I'm not a thief, " he pouted. 

"No, " I said, "but you're blasted hard up, and I don't intend toplace temptation in your way. "

He laughed good-naturedly and turned the subject aside just as LigeSmith and Jack Jackson came in with an unusual companion that puta stop to all further talk. Women were never seen at night timearound Jake's; even his wife was invisible, and I got a sort ofshock when I saw old Cayuga Joe's girl, Elizabeth, following at theboys' heels. It had been raining and the girl, a full blood Cayuga, shivered in the damp and crouched beside the stove. 

Tom Barrett started when he saw her. His color rose and he began tomark up the table with his thumb nail. I could see he felt his fix. The girl--Indian right through--showed no surprise at seeing himthere, but that did not mean she would keep her mouth shut about itnext day, Tom was undoubtedly _discovered_. 

Notwithstanding her unwelcome presence, however, Jackson managed towhisper to me that the Forest Warden and his officers were aliveand bound for the Reserve the following day. But it didn't worry meworth a cent; I knew we were safe as a church with Tom Barrett'sclerical coat in our midst. He was coming over to our corner now. 

"That hundred's right on the dead square, Dan?" he asked anxiously, taking my arm and moving to the window. 

I took a roll of bank notes from my trousers' pocket and with myback to the gang counted out ten tens. I always carry a good wadwith me with a view to convenience if I have to make a hurried exitfrom the scene of my operations. 

He shook his head and stood away. "Not till I've earned it, McLeod. "

What fools very young men make of themselves sometimes. The girlarose, folding her damp shawl over her head, and made towards thedoor; but he intercepted her, saying it was late and as their wayslay in the same direction, he would take her home. She shot a quickglance at him and went out. Some little uneasy action of his caughtmy notice. In a second my suspicions were aroused; the meeting hadbeen arranged, and I knew from what I had seen him to be that thegirl was doomed. 

It was all very well for me to do up Cayuga Joe--he was the Indianwhose hundred dollars' worth of cordwood I owned in lieu ofsix quarts of bad whiskey--but his women-folks were entitled to berespected at least while I was around. I looked at my watch; it waspast midnight. I suddenly got boiling hot clean through. 

"Look here, Tom Barrett, " I said, "I ain't a saint, as everybodyknows; but if you don't treat that girl right, you'll have tosquare it up with me, d'you understand?"

He threw me a nasty look. "Keep your gallantry for some occasionwhen it's needed, Dan McLeod, " he sneered, and with a laugh Ididn't like, he followed the girl out into the rain. 

I walked some distance behind them for two miles. When they reachedher father's house and went in, I watched her through the smalluncurtained window put something on the fire to cook, then arouseher mother, who even at that late hour sat beside the stove smokinga clay pipe. The old woman had apparently met with some accident;her head and shoulders were bound up, and she seemed in pain. Barrett talked with her considerably and once when I caught sightof his face, it was devilish with some black passion I did notrecognize. Although I felt sure the girl was now all right for thenight, there was something about this meeting I didn't like; so Ilay around until just daylight when Jackson and Lige Smith camethrough the bush as pre-arranged should I not return to Jake's. 

It was not long before Elizabeth and Tom came out again and entereda thick little bush behind the shanty. Lige lifted the axe off thewoodpile with a knowing look, and we all three followed silently. I was surprised to find it a well beaten and equally well concealedtrail. All my suspicions returned. I knew now that Barrett was abad lot all round, and as soon as I had quit using him and hiscoat, I made up my mind to rid my quarters of him; fortunately Iknew enough about him to use that knowledge as a whip-lash. 

We followed them for something over a mile, when--heaven and hell!The trail opened abruptly on the clearing where lay my recentlyacquired cordwood with my five barrels of whiskey concealed in itsmidst. 

The girl strode forward, and with the strength of a man, pitcheddown a dozen sticks with lightning speed. 

"There!" she cried, turning to Tom. "There you find him--you findhim whiskey. You say you spill. No more my father he's drunk allday, he beat my mother. "

I stepped out. 

"So, Tom Barrett, " I said, "you've played the d----d sneak andhunted it out!"

He fairly jumped at the sound of my voice; then he got white aspaper, and then--something came into his face that I never sawbefore. It was a look like his father's, the old missionary. 

"Yes, McLeod, " he answered. "And I've hunted _you_ out. It's costme the loss of a whole term at college and a considerable amount ofself-respect, but I've got my finger on you now!"

The whole infernal trick burst right in on my intelligence. If Ihad had a revolver, he would have been a dead man; but bordertraders nowadays are not desperadoes with bowie knives and hippockets--

"You surely don't mean to split on me?" I asked. 

"I surely don't mean to do anything else, " he cheeked back. 

"Then, Tom Barrett, " I sputtered, raging, "you're the dirtiest cadand the foulest liar that ever drew the breath of life. "

"I dare say I am, " he said smoothly. Then with rising anger headvanced, peering into my face with his foxy eyes. "And I'll tellyou right here, Dan McLeod, I'd be a hundred times a cad, and athousand times a liar to save the souls and bodies of our Indiansfrom going to hell, through your cursed whiskey. "

I have always been a brave man, but I confess I felt childishlyscared before the wild, mesmeric power of his eyes. I was unable tomove a finger, but I blurted out boastfully: "If it wasn't for yourpreacher's hat and coat I'd send your sneaking soul to KingdomCome, right here!"

Instantly he hauled off his coat and tie and stood with clenchedfists while his strange eyes fairly spat green fire. 

"Now, " he fumed, "I've discarded my cloth, Dan McLeod. You've gotto deal with a man now, not with a minister. "

To save my immortal soul I can't tell why I couldn't stir. I onlyknow that everything seemed to drop out of sight except his twolittle blazing eyes. I stood like a fool, queered, dead queeredright through. 

He turned politely to the girl. "You may go, Elizabeth, " he said, "and thank you for your assistance. " The girl turned and went upthe trail without a word. 

With the agility of a cat he sprang on to the wood-pile, pitchedoff enough cordwood to expose my entire "cellar;" then going acrossto Lige, he coolly took the axe out of his hand. His face waswhite and set, but his voice was natural enough as he said:

"Now, gentlemen, whoever cares to interrupt me will get the bladeof this axe buried in his brain, as heaven is my witness. "

I didn't even curse as he split the five barrels into slivers andmy well-fought-for whiskey soaked into the slush. Once he liftedhis head and looked at me, and the mouth I didn't understandrevealed itself; there was something about it like a youngNapoleon's. 

I never hated a man in my life as I hated Tom Barrett then. ThatI daren't resist him made it worse. I watched him finish his caddishjob, throw down the axe, take his coat over his arm, and leave theclearing without a word. 

But no sooner was he out of sight than my devilish temper brokeout, and I cursed and blasphemed for half an hour. I'd have hisblood if it cost my neck a rope, and that too before he could informon us. The boys were with me, of course, poor sort of dogs with nogrit of their own, and with the axe as my only weapon we left thebush and ran towards the river. 

I fairly yelled at my good luck as I reached the high bank. There, a few rods down shore, beside the open water sat Tom Barrett, calling something out to his folks across the river, and fromupstream came the deafening thunder of the Onondaga Jam that, loosened by the rain, was shouldering its terrific force downwardswith the strength of a million drunken demons. 

We had him like a rat in a trap, but his foxy eyes had seen us. Hesprang to his feet, hesitated for a fraction of a moment, saw themurder in our faces, then did what any man but a fool would havedone--ran. 

We were hot on his heels. Fifty yards distant an old dug-out layhauled up. He ran it down into the water, stared wildly at theoncoming jam, then at us, sprang into the canoe and grabbed thepaddle. 

I was murderously mad. I wheeled the axe above my shoulder and letfly at him. It missed his head by three inches. 

He was paddling for dear life now, and, our last chance gone, westood riveted to the spot, watching him. On the bluff across theriver stood his half-blood mother, the raw March wind whipping herskirts about her knees; but her strained, ashen face showed shenever felt its chill. Below with his feet almost in the rapidlyrising water, stood the old missionary, his scant grey hair blowingacross his eyes that seemed to look out into eternity--amid streamTom, paddling with the desperation of death, his head turning everysecond with the alertness of an animal to gauge the approachingice-shove. 

Even I wished him life then. Twice I thought him caught in thecrush, but he was out of it like an arrow, and in another moment hehad leapt ashore while above the roar of the grinding jam I heardhim cry out with a strange exultation:

"Father, I've succeeded. I have had to be a scoundrel and a cad, but I've trapped them at last!"

He staggered forward then, sobbing like a child, and the old man'sarms closed round him, just as two heavy jaws of ice snatched thedug-out, hurled it off shore and splintered it to atoms. 

Well! I had made a bad blunder, which I attempted to rectify byreaching Buffalo that night; but Tom Barrett had won the game. Iwas arrested at Fort Erie, handcuffed, jailed, tried, convictedof attempted assault and illicit whiskey-trading on the GrandRiver Indian Reserve--and spent the next five years in KingstonPenitentiary, the guest of Her Most Gracious Majesty QueenVictoria. 

Mother o' the Men

A Story of the Canadian North-West Mounted Police

The commander's wife stood on the deck of the "North Star" lookingat the receding city of Vancouver as if to photograph within hereyes and heart every detail of its wonderful beauty--itsclustering, sisterly houses, its holly hedges, its ivied walls, itsemerald lawns, its teeming streets and towering spires. She seemedto realize that this was the end of the civilized trail; thathenceforth, for many years, her sight would know only the unbrokenline of icy ridge and sky of the northernmost outposts of the greatDominion. To her hand clung a little boy of ten, and about herhovered some twenty young fellows, gay in the scarlet tunics, theflashing buffalo-head buttons, that bespoke the soldierly uniformof the Canadian North-West Mounted Police. They were the firstdetachment bound for the Yukon, and were under her husband'scommand. 

She was the only woman in the "company. " The major had purposelyselected unmarried men for his staff, for in the early nineties theArctic was no place for a woman. But when the Government at Ottawasaw fit to commission Major Lysle to face the frozen North, andwith a handful of men build and garrison a fort at the rim of thePolar Seas, Mrs. Lysle quietly remarked, "I shall accompany you, soshall the boy, " and the major blessed her in his heart, for had shenot so decided, it would mean absolute separation from wife andchild for from three to five years, as in those days no railways, no telegraph lines, stretched their pulsing fingers into theKlondyke. One mail went in, one mail came out, each year--that wasall. 

"It's good-bye, Graham lad, " said one of the scarlet-coatedsoldiers, tossing the little boy to his back. "Look your longestat those paved streets, and the green, green things. There'll bemonths of just snow away up there, " and he nodded towards thenorth. 

"Oh, but father says it won't be lonely at all up there, " assertedthe child. "He says I'll grow _terribly_ big in a few years; thatpeople always grow in the North, and maybe I'll soon be able towear buffalo buttons and have stripes on my sleeve like you;" andthe childish fingers traced the outline of the sergeant's chevrons. 

"I hope, dear, that you shall do all that, soon, " said Mrs. Lysle;"but first you must _win_ those stripes, my boy, and if you win themas the sergeant did, mother shall be very proud of you. "

At which, the said sergeant hastily set the boy down, and, withconfusion written all over his strong young face, made some excuseto disappear, for no man in the world is as shy or modest about hisdeeds of valor as is a North-West "Mounted. "

"Won't you tell me, mother, how Sergeant Black got those stripes onhis sleeve?" begged the boy. 

"Perhaps to-night, son, when you are in bed--just before mothersays good-night--we'll see. But look! there is the city, fading, fading. " Then after a short silence: "There, Graham, it has gone. "

"But isn't that it 'way over there, mother?" persisted the boy. "Isee the sun shining on the roofs. "

Mrs. Lysle shook her head. "No, dearie; that is the snow on themountain peaks. The city has--gone. "

But far into the twilight she yet stood watching the purple sea, the dove-gray coast. Her world was with her--the man she had chosenfor her life partner, and the little boy that belonged to themboth--but there are times even in the life of a wife and motherwhen her soul rebels at cutting herself off from her womenkind, andall that environment of social life among women means, even if theact itself is voluntary on her part. It was a relief, then, fromher rather sombre musing at the ship's rail, when the major lightlyplaced both hands on her shoulders and said, "Grahamie has toddledoff to the stateroom. The sea air is weighting down his eyelids. "

"Sea air?" laughed Mrs. Lysle. "Don't you believe it, Horace. Theyoung monkey had been just scampering about the deck with the menuntil his little legs are tired out. I'm half afraid our 'Mounted'boys bid fair to spoil him. I'll go to him, for I promised him astory to-night. "

"Which you would rather perish than not tell him, if you promised, "smiled the major. "You govern that boy the same way I do my men, eh, dear?"

"It's the only way to govern boys or soldiers, " she laughed backfrom the head of the companionway. "Then both boy and soldier willkeep their promises to you. "

The Major watched her go below, then said to himself, "She'sright--she's always right. She was right to come north, and bringhim, too. But I am a coward, for I daren't tell her she'll have topart from him, or from me, some day. He will have to be sent to thefront again; he can't grow up unlearned, untaught, and there are noschools in our Arctic world, and she must go with him, or stay withme; but I can't tell her. Yes, I'm a coward. " But Major Lysle wasthe only person in all the world who would have thought or said so. 

"And will you tell me how Sergeant Black won his stripes, mother, before I go to sleep?" begged Graham. 

"Yes, little 'North-West, '" she replied, using the pet name the menin barracks frequently called the child. "It's just a wee story ofone man fighting it out alone--just alone, single-handed--with noreinforcements but his own courage, his own self-reliance. "

"That's just what father says, isn't it, mother, to just do thingsyourself?" asked the boy. 

"That's it, dear, and that is what Sergeant Black did. He was onlycorporal then, and he was dispatched from headquarters to arrestsome desperate horse thieves who were trying to drive a magnificentbunch of animals across the boundary line into the United States, and then sell them. These men were breaking two laws. They had notonly stolen the horses, but were trying to evade the AmericanCustoms. Your father always called them 'The Rapparees, ' for theywere Irish, and fighters, and known from the Red River to theRockies as plunderers and desperadoes. There was some trouble tothe north at the same time; barracks was pretty well thinned; nota man could be spared to help him. But when Corporal Black got hisinstructions and listened to the commanding officer say, 'If thatdetachment returns from the Qu'Appelle Valley within twenty-fourhours, I'll order them out to assist you, corporal, ' the pluckylittle soldier just stood erect, clicked his heels together, saluted, and replied, 'I can do it alone, sir. '

"'I notice you don't say you _think_ you can do it alone, ' remarkedthe officer dryly. He was a lenient man and often conversed withhis men. 

"'It is not my place to _think_, sir. I've just got to _do_, 'replied the corporal, and saluting again he was gone. 

"All that night he galloped up the prairie trail on the track ofthe thieves, and just before daybreak he sighted them, entrenchedin a coulee, where their campfires made no glow, and the neighinghorses could not be heard. There were six men all told, busyingthemselves getting breakfast and staking the animals preparatory tohiding through the day hours, and getting across the boundary linethe next night. Both men and beasts were wearied with the longjourney, but Corporal Black is the sort of man that _never_ weariesin either brain or body. He never hesitated a second. Jerking hisrat-skin cap down, covering his face as much as possible, he rodesilently around to the south of the encampment, clutched a revolverin each hand, and rode within earshot, then said four words:

"'Stand, or I fire!' If a cyclone had swooped down on them, thethieves could not have been more astounded. But they stood, andstood yards away from their own guns. Then they demanded to knowwho he was, for of course they thought him a thief like themselves, probably following them to capture their spoil. Then Corporal Blackunbuttoned his great-coat and flung it wide open, displaying thebrilliant scarlet tunic of our own dear Mounted Police. They neededno other reply. At the point of his revolver he ordered them tounstake the horses. Then not one man was allowed to mount, but, breakfastless and frenzied, they were compelled to walk before him, driving the stolen animals ahead, mile upon mile, league afterleague. 

"Father says it was a strange-looking procession that trudged intobarracks. Twenty beautiful, spirited horses, six hangdog-lookingthieves, with a single exhausted horse in the rear, on which wasmounted an alert, keen-eyed and very hungry young soldier who worea scarlet tunic and buffalo-head buttons. The next day CorporalBlack had another stripe on his sleeve. " [The foregoing story is anactual occurrence. The author had the honor of knowing personallythe North-West Mounted Policeman who achieved his rank through thisaction. ]

Her voice ceased, and she looked down at her son. The child lay fora moment, wide-eyed and tense. Then some indescribable qualityseemed to make him momentarily too large, too tall, for the narrowship's berth. Then:

"And he fought it out _alone_, mother, just alone--single-handed?"

"Yes, Grahamie, " she said, softly. 

"Fought alone!" he said almost to himself. Then aloud: "Thank you, mother, for telling me that story. Perhaps some day I'll have tofight it out alone, and when I do, I'll try to remember SergeantBlack. Good-night, mother. "

"Good-night, my boy. "

 * * * * *

The long, long winter was doing its worst, and that was unspeakablein its dreariness and its misery. The "Fort" was just aboutcompleted before things froze up--narrow, small quartersconstructed of rough logs, surrounded by a stockade--but above itsroof the Union Jack floated, and beneath it flashed the scarlettunics, the buffalo-head buttons, the clanking spurs of as bravea band of men, "queened over" by as courageous a woman, as everGibraltar or the Throne Room knew. 

As time went on the major's wife began to find herself "Mother o'the Men" (as an old Klondyker named her), as well as of her ownboy. Those blizzard-blown, snow-hardened, ice-toughened soldierswent to her for everything--sympathy, assistance, advice--for inthat lonely outpost military lines were less strictly drawn, andshe could oftentimes do for the men what would be consideredamazingly unofficial, were those little humane kindnesses done inbarracks at Regina or Macleod or Calgary. She nursed the menthrough every illness, preparing the food herself for the invalids. She attended to many a frozen face and foot and finger. Shesmoothed out their differences, inspirited them when they grewdiscouraged, talked to them of their own people, so that theirhome ties should not be entirely severed because they could writeletters or receive them but once a year. But there were days whenthe sight of a woman's face would have been a glimpse of paradiseto her, days when she almost wildly regretted her boy had not beena girl--just a little sweet-voiced girl, a thing of her own sex andkind. But it always seemed at these moments that Grahamie wouldprovidentially rush in to her with some glad story of sport oradventure, and she would snatch him tightly in her arms and say, "No, no, boy of mine, I don't want even a girlie, if I may onlykeep you. " And once when her thoughts had been more than usuallytraitorous in wishing he had been a girl, the child seemed todivine some idea of her struggle; for a moment his firm littlefingers caught her hand encouragingly, and he said in a whisper, "Are you fighting it out alone, mother--just single-handed?"

"Just single-handed, dearest, " she replied. 

Then he scampered away, but paused to call back gravely, "RememberSergeant Black, mother. "

"Yes, Grahamie, I'll try to, " she replied brightly. At that momenthe was the lesser child of the two. 

And so the winter crept slowly on, and the brief, brilliant summerflitted in, then out, like a golden dream. The second snows wereupon the little fort, the second Christmas, the second long, longweeks and months of the new year. An unspoken horror was staringthem all in the face: navigation did not open when expected, andsupplies were running low, pitifully low. The smoked and driedmeats, the canned things, flour, sealed lard, oatmeal, hard-tack, dried fruits--_everything_ was slowly but inevitably giving out dayupon day. Before and behind them stretched hummocks of traillesssnow. Not an Indian, not a dog train, not even a wild animal, hadset foot in that waste for weeks. In early March the major's wifehad hidden a single package of gelatine, a single tin of driedbeef, and a single half pound of cornstarch. "If sickness comesto my boys" (she did not say boy), "I shall at least have savedthese, " she told herself, in justification of her act. "A sick mancannot live on beans. " But now they were down to beans--just beansand lard boiled together. Then a day dawned when there was not evena spoonful of lard left. "Beans straight!"--it was the death knell, for beans straight--beans without grease--kill the strongest man ina brief span of days. Oh, that the ice bridges would melt, the seasopen, the ships come!

But that night the men at mess had beans with unlimited grease, itspeculiar flavor peppered and spiced out of it. Life, life was to betheirs even yet! What had renewed it?

But one of the men had caught something on his fork and extractedit from the food on his plate. It was an overlooked _wick_. Themajor's wife had begun to boil up the tallow candles. [Fact. ] Butthe cheer that shook that rough log roof came right from heartsthat blessed her, and brought her to the door of the men'smess-room. The men were on their feet instantly. "A light hasbroken upon us, or rather _within_ us, Mrs. Lysle!" cried aself-selected spokesman. 

"Illuminating, isn't it, boys?" She laughed, then turned away, forthe cheers and tears were very close together. 

Then one day when even starving stomachs almost revolted at thecontinued coarse mixture, a ribbon of blue proclaimed the open sea, and into those waters swept the longed-for ship. Yet, strangelyenough, that night the "Mother o' the Men" wept a storm of tears, the only tears she had yielded to in those long five years. Forwith its blessing of food the ship had her hold bursting withliquors and wines, the hideous commerce that invades the pioneerplaces of the earth. Should the already weakened, ill-fed andscurvy-threatened garrison break into those supplies, all the laborand patience and mothering of this courageous woman would beuseless, for after a bean diet in the Northern latitudes, whiskeyis deadly to brain and body, and the victim maddens or dies. 

"You are crying, mother, and the ship here at last!" said Grahamie'svoice at her shoulder. "Crying when we are all so happy. "

"Mother is a little upset, dear. You must try to forget you eversaw her eyes wet. "

"I'll forget, " said the boy with a finality she could not question. "The ship is so full of good things, mother. We'll think of that, and--forget, won't we?" he added. 

"_All_ the things in the ship are not good, Grahamie, boy. If theywere, mother would not cry, " she said. 

"I see, " he said, but stole from her side with a strained, puzzledlook in his young eyes. 

Outside he was met by a laughing, joyous dozen of men. One swungthe child to his shoulder, shouting, "Hurrah, little 'North-West'!Hurrah! we are all coming to pay tribute to your mother. Look atthe dainties we have got for her from the ship!"

"I'm afraid you can't see mother just now, " said the boy. "Motheris a little upset. You see, the ship is so full of good things--butthen, _all_ the things in the ship are not good. If they were, mother would not cry. " In the last words he unconsciously imitatedhis mother's voice. 

A profound silence enveloped the men. Then one spoke. "She'll neverhave cause to cry about anything _I_ do, boys. "

"Nor I!" "Nor I!" "Nor I!" rang out voice after voice. 

"Run back, you blessed little 'North-West, ' and tell mother not tobe scared for the boys. We'll stand by her to a man. She'll neverregret that ship's coming in, " said the gallant soldier, slippingthe boy to the ground. And to the credit of the men who worebuffalo-head buttons, she never did. 

And in all her Yukon years the major's wife had but one moreheartache. That agonizing winter had taught her many things, butthe bitterest knowledge to come to her was the fact that her boymust be sent "to the front. " To be sure, he was growing up the petof all the police; he was becoming manlier, sturdier, moreself-reliant every day. But education he _must_ have, and anotherwinter of such deprivation and horror he was too young, too tender, to endure. It was then that the battle arose in her heart. The boywas to be sent to college. Was it her place to accompany him to thedistant South-east, to live by herself alone in the college town, just to be near him and watch over his young life, or was it herewith her pioneer soldier husband, and his little isolated garrisonof "boys" whom she had mothered for two years?

The inevitable day came when she had to shut her teeth and watchGrahamie go aboard the southward-bound vessel alone, in the care ofa policeman who was returning on sick leave--to watch him stand atthe rail, his little face growing dimmer and more shadowy as thesea widened between them--watch him through tearless, courageouseyes, then turn away with the hopelessness of knowing that for oneentire endless year she must wait for word of his arrival. [Fact. ]But his last brave good-bye words rang through her ears every dayof that eternal year: "We'll remember Sergeant Black, won't we, mother? And we'll each fight it out alone, single-handed, and maybethey'll give us a chevron for our sleeves when it's over. "

But that night when the barracks was wrapped in gloom over theloss of its boy chum, the surgeon appeared in the men's quarters. "Hello, boys!" he said, none too cheerfully. "Dull doings, I say. I'm busy enough, though, keeping an eye on Madam, the major's lady. She's so deadly quiet, so self-controlled, I'm just a little afraid. I wish something would happen to--well, make her less calm. "

"_I'll_ 'happen, ' doctor, " chirped up a genial-looking young chapnamed O'Keefe. "I'll get sick and threaten to die. You say it'sserious; she'll be all interest and medicine spoons, and making mejelly inside an hour. "

The surgeon eyed him sternly, then: "O'Keefe, " he said, "you're thecleverest man I ever came across in the force, and I've been in iteleven years. But, man alive! what have you been doing to yourself?Overwork, no food--why, man, you're sick; look as if you had feverand a touch of pneumonia. You're a very sick man. Go to bed atonce--at once, I say!"

O'Keefe looked the surgeon in the eye, winked meaningly, andO'Keefe turned in, although it was but early afternoon. At sixo'clock an orderly stood at the door of the major's quarters. Mrs. Lysle was standing on the steps, her eyes fixed on the far horizonacross which a ship had melted away. 

"Beg pardon, madam, " said the orderly, saluting, "but young O'Keefeis very ill. We have had the surgeon, but the--the--pain's gettingworse. He's just yelling with agony. "

"I'll go at once, orderly. I should have been told before, " shereplied; and burying her own heartache, she hurried to the men'squarters. Her anxious eyes sought the surgeon's. "Oh, doctor!" shesaid, "this poor fellow must be looked after. What can I do tohelp?"

"Everything, Mrs. Lysle, " gruffed the surgeon with a professionalair. "He is very ill. He must be kept wrapped in hot linseedpoultices and--"

"Oh, I say, doctor, " remonstrated poor O'Keefe, "I'm not that bad. "

"You're a very sick man, " scowled the surgeon. "Now, Mrs. Lysle hasgraciously offered to help nurse you. She'll see that you have hotfomentations every half hour. I'll drop in twice a day to see howyou are getting along. " And with that miserable prospect beforehim, poor O'Keefe watched the surgeon disappear. 

"I simply _had_ to order those half-hour fomentations, old man, "apologized the surgeon that night. "You see, she must be keptbusy--just kept at it every minute we can make her do so. Do youthink you can stand it?"

"Of course I can, " fumed the victim. "But for goodness' sake, don'tput me on sick rations! I'll die, sure, if you do. "

"I've ordered you the best the commissariat boasts--heaps of meat, butter, even eggs, my boy. Think of it--_eggs_--you lucky youngTurk!" laughed the surgeon. 

Then followed nights and days of torture. The "boys" would line upto the "sick-room" four times daily, and blandly ask how he was. 

"How _am_ I?" young O'Keefe would bellow. "How _am_ I? I'm well andstrong enough to brain every one of you fellows, surgeon included, when I get out of this!"

"But when _are_ you going to get out? When will you be out danger?"they would chuckle. 

"Just when I see that haunted look go out of her eyes, and not tillthen!" he would roar. 

And he kept his word. He was really weak when he got up, andpretended to be weaker, but the lines of acute self-control hadleft Mrs. Lysle's face, the suffering had gone from her eyes, theday the noble O'Keefe took his first solid meal in her presence. 

Even the major never discovered that worthy bit of deception. Buta year later, when the mail went out, the surgeon sent the entirestory to Graham, who, in writing to his mother the following year, perplexed her by saying:

". . . . But there are three men in the force I love better thananyone in the world except you, mother. The first, of course, isfather, the others, Sergeant Black and Private O'Keefe. "

"Why O'Keefe?" she asked herself. 

But loyal little "North-West" never told her. 

The Nest Builder

"Well! if some women aren't born just to laugh!" remarked thestation agent's wife. "Have you seen that round-faced woman in thewaiting-room?"

"No, " replied the agent. "I've been too busy; I've had to helpunload freight. I heard some children in there, though; they wereplaying and laughing to beat the band. "

"_Nine_ of them, John! _Nine_ of them, and the oldest just twelve!"gasped his wife. "Why, I'd be crazy if I were in her place. She's come all the way from Grey or Bruce in Ontario--I forgetwhich--with not a soul to help her with that flock. Three of themare almost babies. The smallest one is a darling--just sits on thebench in there and dimples and gurgles and grins all the time. "

"Hasn't she got a husband?" asked John. 

"Of course, " asserted his wife. "But that's just the problem now, or rather he's the problem. He came to Manitoba a year ago, andwas working right here in this town. He doesn't seem to have hadmuch luck, and left last week for some ranch away back of Brandon, she now finds out; she must have crossed his letter as she cameout. She expected to find him here, and now she is in thatwaiting-room with nine children, no money to go further, or togo to a hotel even, and she's--well, she's just good-natured andsmiling, and not a bit worried. As I say, some women are born justto laugh. "

"Have they anything to eat?" asked the agent, anxiously. 

"Stacks of it--a huge hamper. But I took the children what milk wehad, and made her take a cup of good hot tea. She _would_ pay me, however, I couldn't stop her. But I noticed she has mighty littlechange in her purse, and she said she had no money, and said itwith a round, untroubled, smiling face. " The agent's wife spokethe last words almost with envy. 

"I'll try and locate the husband, " said the agent. 

"Yes, she'll get his address to-night, she says, " explained thewife; "but no one knows when he will get here. Most likely he'stwenty miles away from Brandon, and they will have to send outfor him. "

Which eventually proved to be the case; and three days elapsedbefore the husband and father was able to reach the little bordertown where his wife and ample family had been installed asresidents of the general waiting-room of a small, scantily-equippedstation. No beds, no washing conveniences, no table, no chairs;just the wall seats, with a roof above them and the pump waterat the end of the platform to drink from and dabble in. Thedistressed man arrived, harrassed and anxious, only to be met by around-faced, laughing wife and nine round-faced, laughing children, who all made sport of their "camping" experience, and assured himthey could have "stood it" a little longer, if need be. 

But they slept in beds that night--glorious, feathery beds, that were in reality but solid hemp mattresses--in the cheapestlodging-house in town. 

Then began the home-building. Henderson had secured a quartersection of land and made two payments on it when his wife andchildren arrived, with all their "settlers' effects" in a freightcar, which, truth to tell, were meagre enough. They had neverreally owned a home in the East, and when, with saving and selling, she managed to follow her husband into the promising world ofManitoba, she determined to possess a home, no matter how crude, how small, how remote. So Henderson hired horses and "teamed" outsufficient lumber and tar-paper to erect a shack which measuredexactly eighteen by twelve feet, then sodded the roof in trueManitoba style, and into this cramped abode Mrs. Henderson stowedher household goods and nine small children. With the stove, table, chairs, tubs and trunks, there was room for but one bed to beput up. Poor, unresourceful Henderson surveyed the crowded shackhelplessly, but that round-faced, smiling wife of his was not aparticle discouraged. "We'll just build in two sets of bunks, oneach end of the house, " she laughed. "The children won't mindsleeping on 'shelves, ' for the bread-winners must have the bed. "

So they economized space with a dozen such little plans, and allthrough the unpacking and settling and arranging, she would sayevery hour or two, "Oh, it's a little crowded and stuffy, but it's_ours_--it's _home_, " until Henderson and the children caughtsomething of her inspiration, and the sod-roof shack became "home"in the sweetest sense of the word. 

There are some people who "make" time for everything, and thisremarkable mother was one. That winter she baked bread for everyEnglish bachelor ranchman within ten miles. She did their washingand ironing, and never neglected her own, either. She knitted socksfor them, and made and sold quantities of Saskatoon berry jam. Whenspring came she had over fifty dollars of her own, with which shepromptly bought a cow. Then late in March they made a small firstpayment of a team of horses, and "broke land" for the first time, plowing and seeding a few acres of virgin prairie and getting astart. 

But her quaintest invention to utilize every resource possible wasa novel scheme for chicken-raising. One morning the children camein greatly excited over finding a wild duck's nest in the nearby"slough. " Mrs. Henderson told them to be very careful not tofrighten the bird, but to go back and search every foot of thegrassy edges and try to discover other nests. They succeeded infinding three. That day a neighboring English rancher, driving paston his way to Brandon, twenty miles distant, called out, "Wantanything from town, Mrs. Henderson?"

"Eggs, just eggs, if you will bring them, like a good boy, " sheanswered, running out to the trail to meet him. 

"Why, you _are_ luxurious to-day, and eggs at fifty cents a dozen, "he exclaimed. 

"Never mind, " she replied, "they're not nearly so luxurious aschickens. You just bring me a dozen and a half. Pay _any_ price, but be sure they are fresh, new laid, right off the nest. Now justinsist on that, or we shall quarrel. " And with a menacing shake ofa forefinger and a customary laugh, she handed him a precious banknote to pay for the treasures. 

The next day Mrs. Henderson adroitly substituted hen's eggs for thewild ducks' own, and the shy, pretty water fowls, returning fromtheir morning's swim, never discovered the fraud. [Fact. ]

"Six eggs under three sitters--eighteen chicks, if we're luckyenough to have secured fertile eggs, " mused Mrs. Henderson. "Oh, well, we'll see. " And they _did_ see. They saw exactly eighteenfluffy, peeping chicks, whose timid little mothers could notunderstand why their broods disappeared one by one from the long, wet grasses surrounding the nest. But in a warm canton flannellined basket near the Henderson's stove the young arrivals chirpedand picked at warm meal as sturdily as if hatched in a coop by acommonplace barnyard "Biddy. " And every one of those chicks livedand grew and fattened into a splendid flock, and the followingspring they began sitting on their own eggs. But the good-heartedwoman, in relating the story, would always say that she felt likea thief and a robber whenever she thought of that shy, harmlesslittle wild duck who never had the satisfaction of seeing her broodswim in the "slough. "

All this happened more than twenty years ago, yet when I met Mrs. Henderson last autumn, as she was journeying to Prince Albert tovisit a married daughter, her wonderfully youthful face was asround and smiling as if she had never battled through the yearsin a hand-to-hand fight to secure a home in the pioneer daysof Manitoba. She is well off now, and lives no more in thetwelve-by-eighteen-foot bunk-house, but when I asked her how sheaccomplished so much, she replied, "I just jollied things along, and laughed over the hard places. It makes them easier then. "

So perhaps the station agent's wife was really right, after all, when she remarked that "some women were just born to laugh. "

The Tenas Klootchman

[In Chinook language "Tenas Klootchman" means "girl baby. "]

This story came to me from the lips of Maarda herself. It was hardto realize, while looking at her placid and happy face, that Maardahad ever been a mother of sorrows, but the healing of a woundedheart oftentimes leaves a light like that of a benediction on areceptive face, and Maarda's countenance held something greaterthan beauty, something more like lovableness, than any otherquality. 

We sat together on the deck of the little steamer throughout thelong violet twilight, that seems loath to leave the channels androcky of the Upper Pacific in June time. We had dropped easilyinto conversation, for nothing so readily helps one to anintroduction as does the friendly atmosphere of the extreme West, and I had paved the way by greeting her in the Chinook, to whichshe responded with a sincere and friendly handclasp. 

Dinner on the small coast-wise steamers is almost a function. It isthe turning-point of the day, and is served English fashion, inthe evening. The passengers "dress" a little for it, eat the mealleisurely and with relish. People who perhaps have exchanged noconversation during the day, now relax, and fraternize with theirfellow men and women. 

I purposely secured a seat at the dining-table beside Maarda. Even she had gone through a simple "dressing" for dinner, havingsmoothed her satiny black hair, knotted a brilliant silkhandkerchief about her throat, and laid aside her large, heavyplaid shawl, revealing a fine delaine gown of green, bordered withtwo flat rows of black silk velvet ribbon. That silk velvet ribbon, and the fashion in which it was applied, would have bespoken hernationality, even had her dark copper-colored face failed to do so. 

The average Indian woman adores silk and velvet, and will have noneof cotton, and these decorations must be in symmetrical rows, notdesigns. She holds that the fabric is in itself excellent enough. Why twist it and cut it into figures that would only make it lesslovely?

We chatted a little during dinner. Maarda told me that she and herhusband lived at the Squamish River, some thirty-five miles northof Vancouver City, but when I asked if they had any children, shedid not reply, but almost instantly called my attention to apassing vessel seen through the porthole. I took the hint, andsaid no more of family matters, but talked of the fishing and theprospects of a good sockeye run this season. 

Afterwards, however, while I stood alone on deck watching the sunset over the rim of the Pacific, I felt a feathery touch on my arm. I turned to see Maarda, once more enveloped in her shawl, andholding two deck stools. She beckoned with a quick uplift of herchin, and said, "We'll sit together here, with no one about us, andI'll tell you of the child. " And this was her story:

She was the most beautiful little Tenas Klootchman a mother couldwish for, bright, laughing, pretty as a spring flower, but--just asfrail. Such tiny hands, such buds of feet! One felt that they mustnever take her out of her cradle basket for fear that, like aflower stem, she would snap asunder and her little head droop likea blossom. 

But Maarda's skilful fingers had woven and plaited and colored thedaintiest cradle basket in the entire river district for his littlewoodland daughter. She had fished long and late with her husband, so that the canner's money would purchase silk "blankets" to enwrapher treasure; she had beaded cradle bands to strap the wee bodysecurely in its cosy resting-nest. Ah, it was such a basket, fitfor an English princess to sleep in! Everything about it was fine, soft, delicate, and everything born of her mother-love. 

So, for weeks, for even months, the little Tenas Klootchman laughedand smiled, waked and slept, dreamed and dimpled in her prettyplayhouse. Then one day, in the hot, dry summer, there was nosmile. The dimples did not play. The little flower paled, the smallface grew smaller, the tiny hands tinier; and one morning, when thebirds awoke in the forests of the Squamish, the eyes of the littleTenas Klootchman remained closed. 

They put her to sleep under the giant cedars, the lulling, singingfirs, the whispering pines that must now be her lullaby, instead ofher mother's voice crooning the child-songs of the Pacific, thattell of baby foxes and gamboling baby wolves and bright-eyed babybirds. Nothing remained to Maarda but an empty little cradlebasket, but smoothly-folded silken "blankets, " but disused beadedbands. Often at nightfall she would stand alone, and watch the sundip into the far waters, leaving the world as gray and colorlessas her own life; she would outstretch her arms--pitifully emptyarms--towards the west, and beneath her voice again croon thelullabies of the Pacific, telling of the baby foxes, the soft, furry baby wolves, and the little downy fledglings in the nests. Once in an agony of loneliness she sang these things aloud, but herhusband heard her, and his face turned gray and drawn, and her soultold her she must not be heard again singing these things aloud. 

And one evening a little steamer came into harbor. Many Indianscame ashore from it, as the fishing season had begun. Among otherswas a young woman over whose face the finger of illness had tracedshadows and lines of suffering. In her arms she held a baby, abeautiful, chubby, round-faced, healthy child that seemed too heavyfor her wasted form to support. She looked about her wistfully, evidently seeking a face that was not there, and as the steamerpulled out of the harbor, she sat down weakly on the wharf, laidthe child across her lap, and buried her face in her hands. Maardatouched her shoulder. 

"Who do you look for?" she asked. 

"For my brother Luke 'Alaska, '" replied the woman. "I am ill, myhusband is dead, my brother will take care of me; he's a good man. "

"Luke 'Alaska, '" said Maarda. What had she heard of Luke "Alaska?"Why, of course, he was one of the men her own husband had taken ahundred miles up the coast as axeman on a surveying party, but shedared not tell this sick woman. She only said: "You had better comewith me. My husband is away, but in a day of two he will be able toget news to your brother. I'll take care of you till they come. "

The woman arose gratefully, then swayed unsteadily under the weightof the child. Maarda's arms were flung out, yearningly, longingly, towards the baby. 

"Where is your cradle basket to carry him in?" she asked, lookingabout among the boxes and bales of merchandise the steamer had lefton the wharf. 

"I have no cradle basket. I was too weak to make one, too poor tobuy one. I have _nothing_, " said the woman. 

"Then let me carry him, " said Maarda. "It's quite a walk to myplace; he's too heavy for you. "

The woman yielded the child gratefully, saying, "It's not a boy, but a Tenas Klootchman. "

Maarda could hardly believe her senses. That splendid, sturdy, plump, big baby a Tenas Klootchman! For a moment her heart surgedwith bitterness. Why had her own little girl been so frail, soflower-like? But with the touch of that warm baby body, thebitterness faded. She walked slowly, fitting her steps to those ofthe sick woman, and jealously lengthening the time wherein shecould hold and hug the baby in her yearning arms. 

The woman was almost exhausted when they reached Maarda's home, butstrong tea and hot, wholesome food revived her; but fever burnedbrightly in her cheeks and eyes. The woman was very ill, extremelyill. Maarda said, "You must go to bed, and as soon as you arethere, I will take the canoe and go for a doctor. It is two orthree miles, but you stay resting, and I'll bring him. We will putthe Tenas Klootchman beside you in--" she hesitated. Her glancetravelled up to the wall above, where a beautiful empty cradlebasket hung, with folded silken "blankets" and disused beadedbands. 

The woman's gaze followed hers, a light of beautiful understandingpierced the fever glare of her eyes, she stretched out her hot handprotestingly, and said, "Don't put her in--that. Keep that, it isyours. She is used to being rolled only in my shawl. "

But Maarda had already lifted the basket down, and was tenderlyarranging the wrappings. Suddenly her hands halted, she seemed tosee a wee flower face looking up to her like the blossom of arusset-brown pansy. She turned abruptly, and, going to the door, looked out speechlessly on the stretch of sea and sky glimmeringthrough the tree trunks. 

For a time she stood. Then across the silence broke the littlemurmuring sound of the baby half crooning, half crying, indoors, the little cradleless baby that, homeless, had entered her home. Maarda returned, and, lifting the basket, again arranged thewrappings. "The Tenas Klootchman shall have this cradle, " she said, gently. The sick woman turned her face to the wall and sobbed. 

It was growing dark when Maarda left her guests, and entered hercanoe on the quest for a doctor. The clouds hung low, and a fine, slanting rain fell, from which she protected herself as best shecould with a shawl about her shoulders, crossed in front, with eachend tucked into her belt beneath her arms--Indian-fashion. Aroundrocks and boulders, headlands and crags, she paddled, her littlecraft riding the waves like a cork, but pitching and plunging withevery stroke. By and by the wind veered, and blew head on, and nowand again she shipped water; her skirts began dragging heavilyabout her wet ankles, and her moccasins were drenched. The windincreased, and she discarded her shawl to afford greater freedom toher arm-play. The rain drove and slanted across her shoulders andhead, and her thick hair was dripping with sea moisture and thedownpour. 

Sometimes she thought of beaching the canoe and seeking shelteruntil daylight. Then she again saw those fever-haunted eyes of thestranger who was within her gates, again heard the half wail of theTenas Klootchman in her own baby's cradle basket, and at the soundshe turned her back on the possible safety of shelter, and forgedahead. 

It was a wearied woman who finally knocked at the doctor's door andbade him hasten. But his strong man's arm found the return journeycomparatively easy paddling. The wind helped him, and Maarda alsoplied her bow paddle, frequently urging him to hasten. 

It was dawn when they entered her home. The sick woman moaned, andthe child fretted for food. The doctor bent above his patient, shaking his head ruefully as Maarda built the fire, and attended tothe child's needs before she gave thought to changing her drenchedgarments. All day she attended her charges, cooked, toiled, watched, forgetting her night of storm and sleeplessness in thegreater anxieties of ministering to others. The doctor came andwent between her home and the village, but always with that solemnheadshake, that spoke so much more forcibly than words. 

"She shall not die!" declared Maarda. "The Tenas Klootchman needsher, she shall not die!" But the woman grew feebler daily, her eyesgrew brighter, her cheeks burned with deeper scarlet. 

"We must fight for it now, " said the doctor. And Maarda and hefought the dread enemy hour after hour, day after day. 

Bereft of its mother's care, the Tenas Klootchman turned to Maarda, laughed to her, crowed to her, until her lonely heart embraced thechild as a still evening embraces a tempestuous day. Once she had along, terrible fight with herself. She had begun to feel herownership in the little thing, had begun to regard it as her rightto tend and pet it. Her heart called out for it; and she wanted itfor her very own. She began to feel a savage, tigerish joy inthinking--aye, _knowing_ that it really would belong to her and toher alone soon--very soon. 

When this sensation first revealed itself to her, the doctor wasthere--had even told her the woman could not recover. Maarda'sgloriously womanly soul was horrified at itself. She left thedoctor in charge, and went to the shore, fighting out thisoutrageous gladness, strangling it--killing it. 

She returned, a sanctified being, with every faculty in her body, every sympathy of her heart, every energy of her mind devoted tobringing this woman back from the jaws of death. She greeted theend of it all with a sorrowing, half-breaking heart, for she hadlearned to love the woman she had envied, and to weep for thelittle child who lay so helplessly against her unselfish heart. 

A beautifully lucid half-hour came to the fever-stricken one justbefore the Call to the Great Beyond!

"Maarda, " she said, "you have been a good Tillicum to me, and Ican give you nothing for all your care, your kindness--unless--"Her eyes wandered to her child peacefully sleeping in thedelicately-woven basket. Maarda saw the look, her heart leaped witha great joy. Did the woman wish to give the child to her? She darednot ask for it. Suppose Luke "Alaska" wanted it. His wife lovedchildren, though she had four of her own in their home far inland. Then the sick woman spoke:

"Your cradle basket and your heart were empty before I came. Willyou keep my Tenas Klootchman as your own?--to fill them bothagain?"

Maarda promised. "Mine was a Tenas Klootchman, too, " she said. 

"Then I will go to her, and be her mother, wherever she is, in theSpirit Islands they tell us of, " said the woman. "We will be butexchanging our babies, after all. "

When morning dawned, the woman did not awake. 

 * * * * *

Maarda had finished her story, but the recollections had saddenedher eyes, and for a time we both sat on the deck in the violettwilight without exchanging a word. 

"Then the little Tenas Klootchman is yours now?" I asked. 

A sudden radiance suffused her face, all trace of melancholyvanished. She fairly scintillated happiness. 

"Mine!" she said. "All mine! Luke 'Alaska' and his wife said shewas more mine than theirs, that I must keep her as my own. Myhusband rejoiced to see the cradle basket filled, and to hear melaugh as I used to. "

"How I should like to see the baby!" I began. 

"You shall, " she interrupted. Then with a proud, half-roguishexpression, she added:

"She is so strong, so well, so heavy; she sleeps a great deal, andwakes laughing and hungry. "

As night fell, an ancient Indian woman came up the companion-way. In her arms she carried a beautifully-woven basket cradle, withinwhich nestled a round-cheeked, smiling-eyes baby. Across its littleforehead hung locks of black, straight hair, and its sturdy limbswere vainly endeavoring to free themselves from the lacing of the"blankets. " Maarda took the basket, with an expression on her facethat was transfiguring. 

"Yes, this is my little Tenas Klootchman, " she said, as she unlacedthe bands, then lifted the plump little creature out on to her lap. 

Soon afterwards the steamer touched an obscure little harbor, andMaarda, who was to join her husband there, left me, with a happygood-night. As she was going below, she faltered, and turned backto me. "I think sometimes, " she said, quietly, "the Great Spiritthought my baby would feel motherless in the far Spirit Islands, soHe gave her the woman I nursed for a mother; and He knew I waschildless, and He gave me this child for my daughter. Do you thinkI am right? Do you understand?"

"Yes, " I said, "I think you are right, and I understand. "

Once more she smiled radiantly, and turning, descended thecompanionway. I caught a last glimpse of her on the wharf. She wasgreeting her husband, her face a mirror of happiness. About thedelicately-woven basket cradle she had half pulled her heavy plaidshawl, beneath which the two rows of black velvet ribbon borderingher skirt proclaimed once more her nationality. 

The Derelict

Cragstone had committed what his world called a crime--aninexcusable offence that caused him to be shunned by society andestranged from his father's house. He had proved a failure. 

Not one of his whole family connections could say unto the others, "I told you so, " when he turned out badly. 

They had all predicted that he was born for great things, then todiscover that they had over-estimated him was irritating, it toldagainst their discernment, it was unflattering, and they thoughthim inconsiderate. 

So, in addition to his failure, Cragstone had to face the fact thathe had made himself unpopular among his kin. 

As a boy he had been the pride of his family, as a youth, its hopeof fame and fortune; he was clever, handsome, inventive, original, everything that society and his kind admired, but he criminallyfooled them and their expectation, and they never forgave him forit. 

He had dabbled in music, literature, law, everything--always withsemi-success and brilliant promise; he had even tried the stage, playing the Provinces for an entire season; then, ultimatelysinking into mediocrity in all these occupations, he returned toLondon, a hopelessly useless, a pitiably gifted man. His chillylittle aristocratic mother always spoke of him as "poor, dearCharles. " His brothers, clubmen all, graciously alluded to himwith, "deuced hard luck, poor Charlie. " His father never mentionedhis name. 

Then he went into "The Church, " sailed for Canada, idled about fora few weeks, when one of the great colonial bishops, not knowingwhat else to do with him, packed him off north as a missionary tothe Indians. 

And, after four years of disheartening labor amongst asemi-civilized people, came this girl Lydia into his life. Thisgirl of the mixed parentage, the English father, who had been sweptnorthward with the rush of lumber trading, the Chippewa mother, whohad been tossed to his arms by the tide of circumstances. The girlwas a strange composition of both, a type of mixed blood, pale, dark, slender, with the slim hands, the marvellously beautifulteeth of her mother's people, the ambition, the small tendermouth, the utter fearlessness of the English race. But thestrange, laughless eyes, the silent step, the hard sense of honor, proclaimed her far more the daughter of red blood than of white. 

And, with the perversity of his kind, Cragstone loved her; hemeant to marry her because he knew that he should not. What amonstrous thing it would be if he did! He, the shepherd of thishalf-civilized flock, the modern John Baptist; he, the voice of thegreat Anglican Church crying in this wilderness, how could he wedwith this Indian girl who had been a common serving-maid in a housein Penetanguishene, and been dismissed therefrom with an accusationof theft that she could never prove untrue? How could he bringthis reproach upon the Church? Why, the marriage would have noprecedent; and yet he loved her, loved her sweet, silent ways, her listening attitudes, her clear, brown, consumptive-suggestingskin. She was the only thing in all the irksome mission life thathad responded to him, had encouraged him to struggle anew forthe spiritual welfare of this poor red race. Of course, inPenetanguishene they had told him she was irreclaimable, a thief, with ready lies to cover her crimes; for that very reason he felttender towards her, she was so sinful, so pathetically human. 

He could have mastered himself, perhaps, had she not responded, hadhe not seen the laughless eyes laugh alone for him, had she not oncewhen a momentary insanity possessed them both confessed in wordsher love for him as he had done to her. But now? Well, now onlythis horrible tale of theft and untruth hung between them like aveil; now even with his arms locked about her, his eyes drowned inhers, his ears caught the whispers of calumny, his thoughts wereperforated with the horror of his Bishop's censure, and thesethings rushed between his soul and hers, like some bridgeless deephe might not cross, and so his lonely life went on. 

And then one night his sweet humanity, his grand, strong love roseup, battled with him, and conquered. He cast his pharisaical ideas, and the Church's "I am better than thou, " aside forever; he wouldgo now, to-night, he would ask her to be his wife, to have and tohold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for--

A shadow fell across the doorway of his simple home; it was AugustBeaver, the trapper, with the urgent request that he would comeacross to French Island at once, for old "Medicine" Joe was there, dying, and wished to see the minister. At another time Cragstonewould have felt sympathetic, now he was only irritated; he wantedto find Lydia, to look in her laughless eyes, to feel her fingersin his hair, to tell her he did not care if she were a hundredtimes a thief, that he loved her, loved her, loved her, and hewould marry her despite the Church, despite--

"Joe, he's near dead, you come now?" broke in August's voice. Cragstone turned impatiently, got his prayer-book, followed thetrapper, took his place in the canoe, and paddled in silence upthe bay. 

The moon arose, large, limpid, flooding the cabin with a wondrouslight, and making more wan the features of a dying man, whosefever-wasted form lay on some lynx skins on the floor. 

Cragstone was reading from the Book of Common Prayer the exquisiteservice of the Visitation of the Sick. Outside, the loons clangedup the waterways, the herons called across the islands, but nohuman things ventured up the wilds. Inside, the sick man lay, beside him August Beaver holding a rude lantern, while Cragstone'smatchless voice repeated the Anglican formula. A spasm, an upliftedhand, and Cragstone paused. Was the end coming even before abenediction? But the dying man was addressing Beaver in Chippewa, whispering and choking out the words in his death struggle. 

"He says he's bad man, " spoke Beaver. A horrible, humoroussensation swept over Cragstone; he hated himself for it, but atcollege he had always ridiculed death-bed confessions; but in asecond that feeling had vanished, he bent his handsome, fair faceabove the copper-colored countenance of the dying man. "Joe, " hesaid, with that ineffable tenderness that had always drawn humanhearts to him; "Joe, tell me before I pronounce the Absolution, how you have been 'bad'?"

"I steal three times, " came the answer. "Oncet horses, two of themfrom farmer near Barrie. Oncet twenty fox-skins at North Bay;station man he in jail for those fox-skins now. Oncet gold watchfrom doctor at Penetanguishene. "

The prayer-book rattled from Cragstone's hands and fell to thefloor. 

"Tell me about this watch, " he mumbled. "How did you come todo it?"

"I liffe at the doctor's; I take care his horse, long time; oldRiver's girl, Lydia, she work there too; they say she steal it;I sell to trader, the doctor he nefer know, he think Lydia. "

Cragstone was white to the lips. "Joe, " he faltered, "you aredying; do you regret this sin, are you sorry?"

An indistinct "yes" was all; death was claiming him rapidly. 

But a great, white, purified love had swept over the youngclergyman. The girl he worshipped could never now be a reproach tohis calling, she was proved blameless as a baby, and out of hisgreat human love arose the divine calling, the Christ-like senseof forgiveness, the God-like forgetfulness of injury and sufferingdone to his and to him, and once more his soft, rich voice brokethe stillness of the Northern night, as the Anglican absolution ofthe dying fell from his lips in merciful tenderness:

"O Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolveall sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercyforgive thee thine offences, and by His authority committed to meI absolve thee from all thy sins in the name of the Father, and ofthe Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. "

Beaver was holding the lantern close to the penitent's face;Cragstone, kneeling beside him, saw that the end had come already, and, after making the sign of the Cross on the dead Indian'sforehead, the young priest arose and went silently out into thenight. 

 * * * * *

The sun was slipping down into the far horizon, fretted by theinimitable wonder of islands that throng the Georgian Bay; theblood-colored skies, the purpling clouds, the extravagant beautyof a Northern sunset hung in the west like the trailing robes ofroyalty, soundless in their flaring, their fading; soundless as theunbroken wilds which lay bathed in the loneliness of a dying day. 

But on the color-flooded shore stood two, blind to the purple, thescarlet, the gold, blind to all else save the tense straining ofthe other's eyes; deaf to nature's unsung anthem, hearing only theother's voice. Cragstone stood transfixed with consternation. Thememory of the past week of unutterable joy lay blasted with theawfulness of this moment, the memory of even that first day--whenhe had stood with his arms about her, had told her how he haddeclared her reclaimed name far and wide, how even Penetanguisheneknew now that she had suffered blamelessly, how his own heartthrobbed suffocatingly with the honor, the delight of being thepoor means through which she had been righted in the accusing eyesof their little world, and that now she would be his wife, hissweet, helping wife, and she had been great enough not to remindhim that he had not asked her to be his wife until her name wasproved blameless, and he was great enough not to make excuse of theresolve he had set out upon just when August Beaver came to turnthe current of his life. 

But he had other eyes to face to-night, eyes that blurred the past, that burned themselves into his being--the condemning, justly andrighteously indignant eyes of his Bishop--while his numb heart, rather than his ears, listened to the words that fell from theprelate's lips like curses on his soul, like the door that wouldshut him forever outside the holy place. 

"What have you done, you pretended servant of the living God?What use is this you have made of your Holy Orders? You hear theconfessions of a dying man, you absolve and you bless him, and comeaway from the poor dead thief to shout his crimes in the ears ofthe world, to dishonor him, to be a discredit to your calling. Whocould trust again such a man as you have proved to be--faithless tohimself, faithless to his Church, faithless to his God?"

But Cragstone was on the sands at his accuser's feet. "Oh! myLord, " he cried, "I meant only to save the name of a poor, mistrusted girl, selfishly, perhaps, but I would have done thesame thing just for humanity's sake had it been another to whominjustice was done. "

"Your plea of justice is worse than weak; to save the good nameof the living is it just to rob the dead?"

The Bishop's voice was like iron. 

"I did not realize I was a priest, I only knew I was a _man_, " andwith these words Cragstone arose and looked fearlessly, evenproudly, at the one who stood his judge. 

"Is it not better, my Lord, to serve the living than the dead?"

"And bring reproach upon your Church?" said the Bishop, sternly. 

It was the first thought Cragstone ever had of his official crime;he staggered under the horror of it, and the little, dark, silentfigure, that had followed them unseen, realized in her hiding amidthe shadows that the man who had lifted her into the light washimself being thrust down into irremediable darkness. But Cragstoneonly saw the Bishop looking at him as from a supreme height, heonly felt the final stinging lash in the words: "When a mandisregards the most sacred offices of his God, he will hardlyreverence the claims of justice of a simple woman who knows not hisworld, and if he so easily flings his God away for a woman, just soeasily will he fling her away for other gods. "

And Lydia, with eyes that blazed like flame, watched the Bishopturn and walk frigidly up the sands, his indignation against thisoutrager of the Church declaring itself in every footfall. 

Cragstone flung himself down, burying his face in his hands. What awreck he had made of life! He saw his future, loveless, for no womanwould trust him now; even the one whose name he had saved wouldprobably be more unforgiving than the Church; it was the waywith women when a man abandoned God and honor for them; and thisnameless but blackest of sins, this falsity to one poor dyingsinner, would stand between him and heaven forever, though throughthat very crime he had saved a fellow being. Where was the justiceof it?

The purple had died from out the western sky, the waters of theGeorgian Bay lay colorless at his feet, night was covering theworld and stealing with inky blackness into his soul. 

She crept out of her hiding-place, and, coming, gently touched histumbled fair hair; but he shrank from her, crying: "Lydia, my girl, my girl, I am not for a good woman now! I, who thought you anoutcast, a thief, not worthy to be my wife, to-night I am not anoutcast of man alone, but of God. "

But what cared she for his official crimes? She was a woman. Herarms were about him, her lips on his; and he who had, until now, been a portless derelict, who had vainly sought a haven in art, an anchorage in the service of God, had drifted at last into theworld's most sheltered harbor--a woman's love. 

But, of course, the Bishop took away his gown.