"Blackcoat."
I had long since ceased to call him that. The trappers at the
post called him "St. Paul," because, they told me, of his
self-sacrificing life, his kindly deeds, his rarely beautiful old
face; so I, too, called him "St. Paul," thought oftener "Father
Paul," though he never liked the latter title, for he was a
Protestant. 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 heart
speaking in love. His sister was a widow, and mother to a laughing
yellow-haired boy of about my own age, who was my constant playmate
and who taught me much of English in his own childish way. I used
to be fond of this child, just as I was fond of his mother and of
his uncle, my "Father Paul," but as my girlhood passed away, as
womanhood came upon me, I got strangely wearied of them all; I
longed, oh, God, how I longed for the old wild life! It came with
my womanhood, with my years.

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

I said nothing, but I waited. And then one night the feeling
overcame me. I was in the Hudson's Bay store when an Indian came
in from the north with a large pack of buckskin. As they unrolled
it a dash of its insinuating odor filled the store. I went over
and leaned above the skins a second, then buried my face in them,
swallowing, drinking the fragrance of them, that went to my head
like wine. Oh, the wild wonder of that wood-smoked tan, the
subtilty of it, the untamed smell of it! I drank it into my lungs,
my innermost being was saturated with it, till my mind reeled
and my heart seemed twisted with a physical agony. My childhood
recollections rushed upon me, devoured me. I left the store in a
strange, calm frenzy, and going rapidly to the mission house I
confr