Cogewea, the Half-Blood

with a cowpuncher from a distant range, who failed in securing a basket.

Silent Bob spent the feast hour with the schoolmarm; while Celluloid broke bread with a winsome widow of the flats.

Rodeo Jack feasted with a pretty miss, whose basket he captured over the bids of one of “them there city mashers.”

Mrs. Carter’s basket was claimed by a bald-headed Chicagoan, and it was many days before she heard the last of her “marble-domed” partner.

On the return trip, Bill saw to it that Rodeo rode with Densmore, and that Jim, with himself in the lead, kept well beyond earshot.

XXIV

The Second Coming of the Shoyahpee

Let us welcome, then, the strangers,
Hail them as our friends and brothers.

Hiawatha

The noon following the social, the shy-girl summoned Jim to the teepee. The Stemteemä wished to speak to him. Wondering what she could want, he complied, following Mary through the low curtained doorway. His greeting was an inscrutable look from the aged woman, as he seated himself on the buffalo robe. Glancing about the airy abode, he regretted that he had never thought of visiting there. The canvas lodge seemed homelike and the occupant reminded him of his own grandparent from whom he learned the tribal language which he still retained. She meditated before speaking. At length she addressed him:

“You are an Indian,” she said, gazing full into his face. “You will understand me, what I am to tell you. I am distressed and need your help. There is no one else for me to go to.”

Here the Stemteemä paused, as if in doubt about confiding to this strong, determined man⁠—a stranger. But the blood-tie was there, strengthened by a mutual knowledge of language and her need was sore. Seeming to weigh all, she continued:

“I do not like this Shoyahpee, who tries to steal my Cogewea from me and my people. I want her to marry someone of her own kind and class. I do not want the white man with his marked tongue. He will only cast her aside for one of his own race after he tires of her. She must take a man that we can all trust. I have no confidence in the pale faces. Always, they have made light of our women. Ever since the two white men came to us, has this trouble continued. It is a wrong many times repeated and the maidens should learn to distrust the cunning despoilers.

“My aunt fell victim to the first Shoyahpee who came to our tribe. The daughter of a Chief, she died of heart-grief. That is why I hate the pale faced race!

“You will help me to guard and watch over Cogewea. I have spoken to her older sister but Julia seems not to care. She wants her to marry a Shoyahpee, as she did herself. But not many white men are true and good like John. The eye of this other man tells me that he is bad. I have spoken all.”

The whitened head bent lower in grief. The foreman’s eyes glinted as he promised to try to protect Cogewea. They formulated and abandoned different plots for separating the lovers, but finally agreed that events should drift for the present. Considering his mishap with Croppy, it was hardly possible that Carter, with his conception of justice, would consent to Densmore’s dismissal from the ranch, so long as he proved worthy of hire and help was needed. However, under the changed conditions brought about by the closing of the roundup season, the two would not be thrown together so much, and it was hoped that the girl would detect his true character and drop him of her own accord.

Jim rose to go, but as an after thought, asked her to hear the story of the two white men of whom the grandmother had spoken. Stemteemä exhausted the little stone pipe which Mary had filled for her, before answering:

“If you were not of my own kind, I would not talk. Although the white blood has made fairer your skin, I like you and I trust you. I will tell you this story of other snows. Troubles of the long past should be buried, but I will speak.”

Then in an even tone, but at times with a cadence of sorrow, the Stemteemä disclosed how the innocence of her people was betrayed in the second coming of the Shoyahpee.

“I was only a small child, it happened so long ago,” she began. “I am now an old woman! It is so long since I was born that I have lost my correct age. I did keep the snows by knotting a hemp string which I had for that purpose, a knot for each winter. But I lost it on the trail and now I only know that I have seen more than a hundred snows. I must have been very young, but the men with hair on their pale faces impressed me. I have not forgotten the incident all my life. Not with the many snows, could I forget.

“I remember well both the Shoyahpee. I was afraid! I clung to my mother for protection. With pleading and coaxing, she made me to understand that I was not to be afraid of them; that they were not common mortals as were the warriors and medicine men, but were gods⁠—a higher people than the Indians⁠—which all my tribe believed to be true.

“But they were only the ordinary white men and thousands of them have I seen since. I did not then dream that in time I would have grandchildren with their blood. In after snows, when I could understand things better, my father, who was a great war Chief, repeated the story to me often. He told me just as I will now tell it to you.

“ ‘One snow,’ said my father, ‘my tribe, the Okanogans and some