aping, half-naked forms and a small circle of singers
fiercely assaulting a drum which sat on the floor at the right of the
door.

Then Red Wolf, calm, stately, courtly, came before them carrying his
wand of office and conducted them to seats at the left of the fire, and
the girl's heart ceased to pound so fiercely. Looking back she saw
Jennie shaking hands with one of the fiercest of the painted and
beplumed dancers, and recognized him as Blue Fox. Turning, she fixed her
eyes on a middle-aged man who was dancing as sedately as Washington
might have led the minuet, his handsome face calm of line and the clip
of his lips genial and placid. Plainly the ferocity did not extend to
the dancers; the singers alone seemed to express hate and lust and war.

The music suddenly ceased, and in an instant the girl's mind cleared.
She perceived that the singers were laughing as they rolled their
cigarettes, and that the savage warrior dancers were gossiping together
as they rested, while all about her sat plump young girls in gay
dresses, very conscious of the eyes of the young men. In her early life
Elsie had attended a country dance, and her changed impressions of this
mad, blood-thirsty revel was indicated in her tone as she said:

"Why, it's just an old-fashioned country hoe-down."

Curtis laughed. "I congratulate you on your penetration," he mockingly
said.

The old men came up to shake hands with the agent, and on being
presented to Elsie smiled reassuringly. Their manners were very good,
indeed. Several of them gravely made a swift sign which caused Curtis to
color and look confused, and when his answering sign caused them all to
look at Lawson, Elsie demanded to know what it was all about.

"Do you think you'd better know?" he asked.

"Certainly, I insist on knowing," she added, as he hesitated again.

He looked at her, but a little unsteadily. "They asked if you were my
bride, and I replied no, that you came with Lawson."

It was her turn to look confused. "The impudent things!" was all she
could find to say at the moment.

Red Wolf called out a few imperative words, the song began with its
imitation of the wolves at war as before, then settled into a pounding
chant--deep, resonant, and inspiriting. The dancers sprang forth--not
all, but a part of them--as though their names had been called, while a
curious little bent and withered old man crept in like a gnome and built
up the fire till it blazed brightly. As the