hand stroking her long, soft tresses. He
was thinking of the darker, richer tresses of another, whose proud,
sad face and mournful eyes with their wistful meaning, so like
Wallulah's own, he, a barbarian prince, could never understand.

Although, according to the superstitious custom of the Willamettes, he
never spoke the name of Sea-Flower or alluded to her in any way, he
loved his lost wife with a deep and unchanging affection. She had been
a fair frail thing whose grace and refinement perplexed and fascinated
him, moving him to unwonted tenderness and yearning. He had brought to
her the spoils of the chase and of battle. The finest mat was braided
for her lodge, the choicest skins and furs spread for her bed, and the
chieftainess's string of _hiagua_ shells and grizzly bear's claws had
been put around her white neck by Multnomah's own hand. In spite of
all this, she drooped and saddened year by year; the very hands that
sought to cherish her seemed but to bruise; and she sickened and died,
the delicate woman, in the arms of the iron war-chief, like a flower
in the grasp of a mailed hand.

Why did she die? Why did she always seem so sad? Why did she so often
steal away to weep over her child? Was not the best food hers, and the
warm place by the lodge fire, and the softest bearskin to rest on; and
was she not the wife of Multnomah,--the big chief's woman? Why then
should she droop and die like a winged bird that one tries to tame by
tying it to the wigwam stake and tossing it food?

Often the old chief brooded over these questions, but it was unknown
to all, even to Wallulah. Only his raven tresses, cut close year by
year in sign of perpetual mourning, told that he had not forgotten,
could never forget.

The swans had taken flight, and their long lingering note sounded
faint in the distance.

"You have frightened away my swans," said Wallulah, looking up at him
smilingly.

A shadow crossed his brow.

"Wallulah," he said, and his voice had now the stern ring habitual to
it, "you waste your life with the birds and trees and that thing of
sweet sounds,"--pointing to the flute. "Better be learning to think on
the things a war-chief's daughter should care for,--the feast and the
council, the war-parties and the welcome to the braves when they come
back to the camp with the spoil."

The bright look died out of her face.

"You say those words so often," she replied sorrowfully, "and I try to
obey, but cannot. Wa