ide her large, heavy
plaid shawl, revealing a fine delaine gown of green, bordered with
two flat rows of black silk velvet ribbon. That silk velvet ribbon,
and the fashion in which it was applied, would have bespoken her
nationality, even had her dark copper-colored face failed to do so.

The average Indian woman adores silk and velvet, and will have none
of cotton, and these decorations must be in symmetrical rows, not
designs. She holds that the fabric is in itself excellent enough.
Why twist it and cut it into figures that would only make it less
lovely?

We chatted a little during dinner. Maarda told me that she and her
husband lived at the Squamish River, some thirty-five miles north
of Vancouver City, but when I asked if they had any children, she
did not reply, but almost instantly called my attention to a
passing vessel seen through the porthole. I took the hint, and
said no more of family matters, but talked of the fishing and the
prospects of a good sockeye run this season.

Afterwards, however, while I stood alone on deck watching the sun
set over the rim of the Pacific, I felt a feathery touch on my arm.
I turned to see Maarda, once more enveloped in her shawl, and
holding two deck stools. She beckoned with a quick uplift of her
chin, and said, "We'll sit together here, with no one about us, and
I'll tell you of the child." And this was her story:

She was the most beautiful little Tenas Klootchman a mother could
wish for, bright, laughing, pretty as a spring flower, but--just as
frail. Such tiny hands, such buds of feet! One felt that they must
never take her out of her cradle basket for fear that, like a
flower stem, she would snap asunder and her little head droop like
a blossom.

But Maarda's skilful fingers had woven and plaited and colored the
daintiest cradle basket in the entire river district for his little
woodland daughter. She had fished long and late with her husband,
so that the canner's money would purchase silk "blankets" to enwrap
her treasure; she had beaded cradle bands to strap the wee body
securely in its cosy resting-nest. Ah, it was such a basket, fit
for an English princess to sleep in! Everything about it was fine,
soft, delicate, and everything born of her mother-love.

So, for weeks, for even months, the little Tenas Klootchman laughed
and smiled, waked and slept, dreamed and dimpled in her pretty
playhouse. Then one day, in the hot, dry summer, there was no
smile. The dim