Tillie," called out the Lieutenant. "Do you like
music?"

She smiled and nodded, accepting his invitation.

"Shall I sing for you, Tillie?"

A low spoken affirmative came from the old creature, who had seated
herself near the entrance.

"I'll see if I can remember a few lines in Chilkat that I wrote some
time ago," said the musician, as he again touched the strings.

It was only a simple song, descriptive of two Indian lovers, and it ran
in this fashion:

In western skies the sun dips low
Above the purpled hills,
While glinting waters and their flow
The air with music fills.

Filmy and light as fairies' wings,
The fading clouds descend,
Touching with finger tips the strings
While leaves on green boughs bend.

The lone loon's call unto his mate
The rustle of the quail,
Announce the day as growing late,
And sunshine's pleasures fail.

Then out upon the quiet lake,
In tiny birch canoe,
Ageeluk and her lover make
Their vows for weal or woe.

In Chilkat tongue the lover sings,
The song all lovers know,
To dusky maid with copper rings,
Where long, lank rushes grow.

The shadows lengthen, slowly creep
Across the water dark,
While little waves are hiding deep,
Around the lovers' bark.

Content, at last, these lovers leap
Upon the steep bank's stone.
The leaves are still, the birds asleep,
And they are left alone.

When he had finished the song he paused. Tillie seemed fast asleep. She
had slipped to the floor at the beginning of the song, and sat with her
head upon her drawn-up knees, with her hands clasped above them. She
made no move. The officer continued his singing, still softly, and in a
retrospective mood. He was a born musician. His whole soul craved song,
and the greatest deprivation to him in Alaska was the lack of music. For
this reason, he kept his own banjo with him, and many an evening's
entertainment had he furnished in cabin and beside camp fire, when his
fine barytone mingled with an ascending cloud from burning spruce knots,
and added enjoyment to the hour.

At last the old Indian raised her head. Pushing back a few long wisps of
hair that had fallen over her face, she asked for water. Her mouth
seemed parched and dry, and her withered lips scarcely moved. She had
just seen the old stone house they were looking for, and would tell the
white men of it, she said.

"Is it the same you saw when a chil