roadside, with a single salmon
hunter crouching in it, ready with his spear. It flashed over me that he
was one of the two Indians who had tracked me to the Duckabush; the taller
one who had tried to drink at the rill; then he made his throw and at the
same instant the girl's hat fell again on my face. I heard her call her
pleasant 'Clahowya!' and she added, rowing on evenly: 'Hyas delate
salmon.' The next moment his answer rang astern: 'Clahowya! Clahowya! Hyas
delate salmon.'

"At last I felt the swell of the open, and she leaned to uncover my face
once more. 'The steamer is in sight,' she said, and I raised my head again
and saw the boat, a small moving blot with a trailer of smoke, far up the
sapphire sea. Then I turned on my elbow and looked back. The canoe and the
encampment were hidden by the point; we were drifting off the wharf of the
small town-site, almost abandoned, where the steamer made her stop. There
was nothing left to do but express my gratitude, which I did clumsily
enough.

"'You mustn't make so much of it,' she said; 'the first thing a
reservation Indian is taught is to forget the old law, a life for a life.'

"'I know that,' I answered, 'still I couldn't have faced the best white
man that first hour, and off there in the mountains, away from reservation
influences, my chances looked small. I wish I could be as sure the men who
were with me are safe.'

"She gave me a long, calculating look. 'They will be--soon,' she said. 'My
brother Robert should be on the steamer with the superintendent and
reservation guard.' And she dipped her oars again, pointing the boat a
little more towards the landing, and watched the steamer while I sifted
her meaning.

"'So,' I said at last. 'So they are there at that camp. You knew it and
brought me by.'

"'You couldn't have helped them any,' she said, 'and you can go back, if
you wish, with the guard.' Then she told me how she had visited the camp
with her brother Robert and had seen them bound with stout strips of
elk-hide. They had explained the accident and how one of them, to give me
time at the start, had put himself in my place."

Tisdale halted a moment; a wave of emotion crossed his face. His look
rested on Mrs. Weatherbee, and his eyes drew and held hers. She leaned
forward a little; her lips parted over a hushed breath. It was as though
she braved while she feared his next words. "That possibility hadn't
occurred to me," he went on, "yet I should have