ect and stood up himself. "Thou art
a woman. Wherefore the dirt is no place for thee, nor the feet of any
man."

"He is my man."

"Then Jesus forgive all men!" Van Brunt cried out passionately.

"He is my man," she repeated monotonously, beseechingly.

"He is my brother," he answered.

"My father is Chief Tantlatch. He is a power over five villages. I
will see that the five villages be searched for thy choice of all
maidens, that thou mayest stay here by thy brother, and dwell in
comfort."

"After one sleep I go."

"And my man?"

"Thy man comes now. Behold!"

From among the gloomy spruces came the light carolling of Fairfax's
voice.

As the day is quenched by a sea of fog, so his song smote the light
out of her face. "It is the tongue of his own people," she said; "the
tongue of his own people."

She turned, with the free movement of a lithe young animal, and made
off into the forest.

"It's all fixed," Fairfax called as he came up. "His regal highness
will receive you after breakfast."

"Have you told him?" Van Brunt asked.

"No. Nor shall I tell him till we're ready to pull out."

Van Brunt looked with moody affection over the sleeping forms of his
men.

"I shall be glad when we are a hundred leagues upon our way," he said.

* * * * *

Thom raised the skin-flap of her father's lodge. Two men sat with
him, and the three looked at her with swift interest. But her face
betokened nothing as she entered and took seat quietly, without
speech. Tantlatch drummed with his knuckles on a spear-heft across
his knees, and gazed idly along the path of a sun-ray which pierced a
lacing-hole and flung a glittering track across the murky atmosphere
of the lodge. To his right, at his shoulder, crouched Chugungatte, the
shaman. Both were old men, and the weariness of many years brooded in
their eyes. But opposite them sat Keen, a young man and chief favorite
in the tribe. He was quick and alert of movement, and his black eyes
flashed from face to face in ceaseless scrutiny and challenge.

Silence reigned in the place. Now and again camp noises penetrated,
and from the distance, faint and far, like the shadows of voices, came
the wrangling of boys in thin shrill tones. A dog thrust his head into
the entrance and blinked wolfishly at them for a space, the slaver
dripping from his ivory-white fangs. After a time he growled
tentatively, and then, awed by the immobility of the human fi