will not consider one of our daughters
fit for marriage with one of them; because it would blend
their blood with our blood.' Now, O you chiefs and young
men, that which you at the first considered a hardship
if it did not come to pass, has come to pass, and yet
you complain. 'The whites are above marrying our daughters,'
you first cry; now you plan revenge because they want to
marry, and do marry them." The arguments used by the
women were too strong, and the brawny, eagle-eyed hunters
were compelled to mate themselves with the ugly girls of
the tents. It is asserted by some writers on the North-West
that the beauty observed in the Metis women in after
years was in great part to be attributed to the fact that
the English settlers took to wife only the most beautiful
of the Indian girls. Now and again too, the canny Scotch
lad, with his gun on his shoulder and his retriever at
his heel, would walk through a Saulteux settlement. The
girls here were still shyer than their Cree cousins, but
they were not a whit less lovely. They were not dumpy
like so many Indian girls, but were slight of build, and
willowy of motion. Their hair was long and black, but it
was as fine as silk, and shone like the plumage of a
blackbird. There was not that oily swarthiness in the
complexion, which makes so many Indian women hideous in
the eyes of a connoisseur of beauty; but the cheeks of
these girls were a pale olive, and sometimes, when they
were excited, a faint tinge of rose came out like the
delicate pink flush that appears in the olive-grey of
the morning. And these maidens, too, began to cast
languishing eyes upon the pale-faced stranger; and sighed
all the day while they sewed fringe upon their skirts
and beads upon their moccasins. Their affections now were
not for him who showed the largest number of wolves'
tongues or enemies' scalps, but for the gracious stranger
with his gentle manners and winning ways. They soon began
to put themselves in his way when he came to shoot chicken
or quail among the grasses; would point out to him passes
leading around the swamps, and inform him where he might
find elk or wild turkey. Then with half shy, yet half
coquettish airs, and a lurking tenderness in their great
dusk hazel eyes, they would twist a sprig off a crown of
golden rod, and with their dainty little brown fingers
pin it upon the hunter's coat. With shy curiosity they
would smoothe the cloth woven in Paisley, forming in
their mi