onted my Father Paul and demanded to be allowed to go "home,"
if only for a day. He received the request with the same refusal and
the same gentle sigh that I had so often been greeted with, but this
time the desire, the smoke-tan, the heart-ache, never lessened.

Night after night I would steal away by myself and go to the border
of the village to watch the sun set in the foothills, to gaze at the
far line of sky and prairie, to long and long for my father's lodge.
And Laurence--always Laurence--my fair-haired, laughing, child
playmate, would come calling and calling for me: "Esther, where are
you? We miss you; come in, Esther, come in with me." And if I did
not turn at once to him and follow, he would come and place his
strong 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 laughing
blue eyes, and always those yellow curls about his temples. He was
my solace in my half-exile, my comrade, my brother, until one night
it was, "Esther, Esther, can't _I_ make you happy?"

I did not answer him; only looked out across the plains and thought
of 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 felt
the 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, just
because he held me so and was whispering brokenly, "Don't leave me,
don't leave me, Esther; _my_ Esther, my child-love, my playmate, my
girl-comrade, my little Cree sweetheart, will you go away to your
people, 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 the
bed of buffalo hide, the soft, silent moccasin; no more the dark
faces of my people, the dulcet cadence of the sweet Cree tongue--only
this man, this fair, proud, tender man who held me in his arms, in
his heart. My soul prayed his great white God, in that moment, that
He would let me have only this. It was twilight when we re-entered
the mission gate. We were both excited, feverish. Father Paul was
reading evening prayers in the large room beyond the hallway; his
soft, saint-like voice stole beyond the doors, like a benediction
upon us. I went noise