A Daughter of the Snows

ping meadow. The earth was fat with excessive moisture and soft to her feet, while the dank vegetation slapped against her knees and cast off

d trees and the creeping green things with a passionate love; and the dim murmur of grow

er face in the fragrant coolness, and with her hands drew the purple heads in circling splendor about her own. And she was not ashamed. She had wandered away amid the complexities and smirch and withering heats of the great world, and

across the Abyss and into the world, where men had wandered away from the old truths and made themselves selfish dogmas and casuistries of the subtlest kinds; the faith she had brought back with her, still fresh, and young, and joyous. And it was all so simple, she had contended; why should not their faith be as her faith-the faith of food and blanket? The faith of trail and hunting camp? The

tree-squirrel launched unerringly into space above her head, and went on, from limb to limb and tree to tree, scolding graciously the wh

n she passed a great and glowering Sitkan buck she kept her tongue between her teeth. At the fringe of the forest, the camp confronted her. And she was startled. It was not the old camp of a score or more of lodges clustering and huddling together in the open as though for company, but a mighty camp. It began at the very forest, and flowed in and out among the scattered tree-clumps on the flat, and spilled over and down to the river bank where the long canoes were lined up ten and twelve deep. It

in a day. Glancing under the raised flaps of a tent, she saw haggard-faced bucks squatting in a circle on the floor. By the door a heap of broken bottles advertised the vigils of the night. A white man, low of visage and shrewd, was dealing cards about, and gold and silver coins leaped into heaping

n the sunshine of an open doorway, ra

tered as well and as excitedly as

le Laughter! Her name of the long gone Indian

Hee?" she mumbled. "And thine eyes so young

na cried, her tongue haltin

e thee thy name, Tenas Hee-Hee. Who fought for thee with Death when thou wast ailing; and gathered growing things from the woods and grasses of the earth and made of them tea, and gave thee to drink. But I mark little change, for I knew thee at once. It was thy very shadow on the ground that made me lift my head. A little change, mayhap. Tall thou art, and like a slender willow in thy grace, and the sun

en say evil things to me in the camp, and as I came through the woods, even

nd these days. They can point to no man and say, 'That is my man.' And it is not good that women should he thus. And they look upon all men, bold-eyed and shameless, and

. He grunted to Frona and sat down. Only a certain eag

in these bad days," he vouchsa

flour and bacon and white man's grub? Do not the young men contrive great wealth what of their pack-straps and pa

clutter the way of our feet. It is so. The bellies are fuller with the white man's grub; but also are they fuller with the white man's bad whiskey. Nor could it be otherwise that the young men contrive great wealth; but they sit by night over the cards, and it passes from them, and they speak harsh words one to another, and in anger blows a

is so!" wail

d," Muskim continued. "They come over the salt sea like the wa

Neepoosa lamented, rock

and cold; and ever do they com

way, and dark and cold!" She shivered, then lai

a no

ee-Hee goest

and Matt McCarthy pe

akfast waitin' this ha

' like the old woman he

Frona's companions, "a

little mimory

d salutation and rema

rts by mid-day, an' it's little I'll see iv ye at the best. An' l