e. From a
slave, I worked myself to a seat among the head men, and in war and
peace, so soon as I had learned their ways, was an unchallenged
authority. Reindeer was their medium of exchange, their unit of value
as it were, and we were almost constantly engaged in cattle forays
among the adjacent clans, or in protecting our own herds from their
inroads. I improved upon their methods, taught them better strategy
and tactics, and put a snap and go into their operations which no
neighbor tribe could withstand.

"But still, though I became a power, I was no nearer my freedom. It
was laughable, for I had over-reached myself and made myself too
valuable. They cherished me with exceeding kindness, but they were
jealously careful. I could go and come and command without restraint,
but when the trading parties went down to the coast I was not permitted
to accompany them. That was the one restriction placed upon my
movements.

"Also, it is very tottery in the high places, and when I began altering
their political structures I came to grief again. In the process of
binding together twenty or more of the neighboring tribes in order to
settle rival claims, I was given the over-lordship of the federation.
But Old Pi-Une was the greatest of the under-chiefs,--a king in a
way,--and in relinquishing his claim to the supreme leadership he
refused to forego all the honors. The least that could be done to
appease him was for me to marry his daughter Ilswunga. Nay, he
demanded it. I offered to abandon the federation, but he would not
hear of it. And--"

"And?" Mrs. Schoville murmured ecstatically.

"And I married Ilswunga, which is the Chow Chuen name for Wild Deer.
Poor Ilswunga! Like Swinburne's Iseult of Brittany, and I Tristram!
The last I saw of her she was playing solitaire in the Mission of
Irkutsky and stubbornly refusing to take a bath."

"Oh, mercy! It's ten o'clock!" Mrs. Schoville suddenly cried, her
husband having at last caught her eye from across the room. "I'm so
sorry I can't hear the rest, Mr. St. Vincent, how you escaped and all
that. But you must come and see me. I am just dying to hear!"

"And I took you for a tenderfoot, a _chechaquo_," Frona said meekly, as
St. Vincent tied his ear-flaps and turned up his collar preparatory to
leaving.

"I dislike posing," he answered, matching her meekness. "It smacks of
insincerity; it really is untrue. And it is so easy to slip into it.
Look at the old-