s subtle body.

"Thou shalt not die; thy skin shall not become my work-bag!"
unconsciously the maiden spoke. The mother sympathy had taken hold on
her mind. She picked the fawn up tenderly, bound its legs, and put it on
her back to carry like an Indian babe in the folds of her robe.

"I cannot leave you alone, Tachinchala. Your mother is not here. Our
hunters will soon return by this road, and your mother has left behind
her two plain tracks leading to this thicket," she murmured.

The wild creature struggled vigorously for a minute, and then became
quiet. Its graceful head protruded from the elkskin robe just over
Snana's shoulder. She was slowly climbing the slope with her burden,
when suddenly like an apparition the doe-mother stood before her. The
fawn called loudly when it was first seized, and the mother was not too
far away to hear. Now she called frantically for her child, at the same
time stamping with her delicate fore-feet.

"Yes, sister, you are right; she is yours; but you cannot save her
to-day! The hunters will soon be here. Let me keep her for you; I will
return her to you safely. And hear me, O sister of the woods, that some
day I may become the mother of a noble race of warriors and of fine
women, as handsome as you are!"

At this moment the quick eyes of the Indian girl detected something
strange in the doe's actions. She glanced in every direction and behold!
a grizzly bear was cautiously approaching the group from a considerable
distance.

"Run, run, sister! I shall save your child if I can," she cried, and
flew for the nearest scrub oak on the edge of the bank. Up the tree she
scrambled, with the fawn still securely bound to her back. The grizzly
came on with teeth exposed, and the doe-mother in her flight came
between him and the tree, giving a series of indignant snorts as she
ran, and so distracted Mato from his object of attack; but only for a
few seconds--then on he came!

"Desist, O brave Mato! It does not become a great medicine-man to attack
a helpless woman with a burden upon her back!"

Snana spoke as if the huge brute could understand her, and indeed the
Indians hold that wild animals understand intuitively when appealed to
by human beings in distress. Yet he replied only with a hoarse growl, as
rising upon his hind legs he shook the little tree vigorously.

"Ye, ye, heyupi ye!" Snana called loudly to her companion
turnip-diggers. Her cry soon brought all the women into sight u