s. You see, she had a gentle, indulgent husband, and that made her
happy and kept her so.

"Magadar is stirring up the young men again to go on the war-path," said
the younger woman, without looking up from the embroidered moccasin with
which she was engaged.

"Yes, I know it. I heard him as he passed our tent talking to Alizay.
I don't like Alizay; he is like gunpowder: the least thing sets him off,
and he flashes up horribly."

"But many of our other braves have no desire to quarrel with the
Eskimos," said Adolay; "indeed, some are even fond of them. And some of
the men of the ice are very handsome. Don't you remember that one,
mother, that we met when we went last spring with some of our men to
shoot at the Greygoose River? He was a fine man--big and strong, and
active and kind--almost good enough to be a Dogrib."

"I remember him well," returned Isquay, "for he saved my life. Have you
forgotten that already?"

"No, I have not forgotten it," answered the girl, with a slight smile.
"Did I not stand on the riverbank with my heart choking me when I saw
the ice rushing down with the flood and closing on your canoe--for I
could do nothing to help you, and none of our men were near! And did I
not see the brave man of the ice, when he heard my cry, come running
like the deer and jump into the river and swim like the otter till he
got to you, and then he scrambled on a big bit of ice and lifted you and
the canoe out of the water as if he had the strength of a moose-deer,
after which he guided the ice-lump to the bank with one of your paddles!
Forget it! no. I only wish the brave Eskimo was an Indian."

"I think you would be offering to be his squaw if he was," said the
mother with a short laugh.

"Perhaps I would. But he's only an eater-of-raw-flesh!" Adolay sighed
as gently as if she had been a civilised girl! "But he has gone away to
the great ice lake, so I suppose we shall never see him again."

"Unless," said Isquay, "he comes back this spring with his people, and
our braves have a fight with them--then you would be likely to see his
scalp again, if not himself."

Adolay made no reply to this; neither did she seem shocked at the
suggestion. Indeed, Indian women are too much accustomed to real
shocking to be much troubled with shocks of the imagination. Holding
out her moccasin at arm's-length, the better to note the effect of her
work, she expressed regret that her father had gone off with the
hu