The aged woman made no reply but drew assiduously at the little stone pipe which Mary had filled for her. She continued in silence until the kinnikinnick was exhausted and then stowing the pipe away, she began impressively:
“My grandchildren! I am now old and cannot stay with you many more snows. The story I am telling is true and I want you to keep it after I am gone.
“Green-blanket Feet was my best friend and she told me this tale after she came back to our tribe from the Blackfeet. I remember her as a girl. How comely! how graceful. Eyes clear as the mountain stream; reflecting innocence and the dreamer. Cheeks blooming as the dusky wild flower of spring, with hair in two braids, reaching to her knees. Her feet were small and shapely. The pride of every Indian woman is the gift of a small foot. Hers was a generous heart and a confiding nature. But wayward, of adventures in the deep forest she had many. Her father and mother had died, leaving her no other protector but an old aunt, with whom she lived. This aunt could not compel her to stay in the teepee and sit on her feet like the other maidens of her tribe. She was trouble-free until she met her fate in the false Shoyahpee.
“My friend was at the spring in the woods, when she first saw the pale face. He carried a gun and had killed a deer. He spoke with a soft voice, but the tongue was strange. His words she could not understand, but the signs he made were pleasing. His eyes were afire with greed, but the young is ever blind. The buttons on his capo, blazed as the sun. She brought him to the lodge of the aunt, where he left the deer as a gift and then went away.
“The following sun the white man came to visit at the lodge near the spring, and many more sundowns was he there. He planned until the girl gave her heart to him. She soon deserted her aunt, her people for the Shoyahpee, who lived at the fort.
“Yes, my friend left her own kind to dwell with her white husband among the pale faces. After many moons, a papoose came, a girl. She was glad to see the little Shoyahpee, nearly as white as its father. A snow passed and another papoose came; this time a boy. The mother was now wearing the white man’s manner of clothing and was eating his food. She often longed for her people. She sometimes visited them in their lodges and her children kept warm her heart.
“The blow feel when her youngest child was two snows old. The white husband came to her while she was making moccasins for her little girl and said:
“ ‘Woman! listen well my words. I am called away; far towards the rising sun. It is from my Chief, whom I can not refuse. It is at his bidding that I go. If you want to care for our children, you can travel with me, but you may never see your own people again. You can stay here, but I will take the papooses and go. I am not coming back.’
“My friend’s head drooped and tears visited her eyes, the first since childhood. She now realized the true gravity of taking a man not of her own kind, what it really meant to her life. She must make choice between him and her own race, desert or cling to her own children. He was not good to her, but her little papooses! She could not let him take them from her. She would go with him as far as he would permit.
“It was only a few more sundowns when the Shoyahpee with his wife and papooses rode away accompanied by another pale face with a cayuse pack train. The woman had promised her people that she would never forget them, that some day she would return. Her voice trembled as she said goodbye, then she rode swiftly away. The youngest papoose Robert, was laced on his cradle-board and hung to the horn of the saddle. Kitty, the oldest, sat behind her mother, secure in the binding folds of a shawl. The names were those given the children by their white father. I saw this mother ride away without once looking back. It was many moons before I beheld her again and this is what she told me:
“ ‘When I went with my white man, I felt as if I were dying. Leaving my people was harder than had I let him go back alone to his kind. Only for my children did I go. I was heartsick! Every tree, every little bush spoke to me; every stone called to me as I passed the nooks where I had first met the Shoyahpee. The birds sang in tones of sadness and the water’s fret was wailing. But I clung to my little ones and followed my hated husband from sundown to sundown; camping on the trail. I watched closely and learned the country as we passed. I might come back to my people.
“ ‘We traveled till the big mountains were crossed and we reached the wide, flat lands where there are no trees and but little water. We were among strange tribes, enemies of the Okanogans. We saw buffalo roaming in great herds. There was other wild life which reminded me of the land of the Okanogans. Every sun, my mind grew heavier until I could hardly endure to go farther. But when I looked at my papooses, I could not leave them alone with their white father.
“ ‘The Shoyahpee grew meaner to me as we trailed. He beat me! kicked me out from the night camps. One sun I made my mind brave to turn back and I lingered behind the
