rld in its drowsy arms, and the
sun-filled days and the starry nights seemed overflowing with the
promise of all time. Each day he put off his going until tomorrow, and
each day Slim Buck urged him to remain with them always.

But in Yellow Bird's eyes was a strange, quiet mystery, and she did not
urge. Each day and night she was watching--and waiting.

And at last that for which she watched and waited came to pass.

It was night, a dark, still night with a creeping restlessness in it.
This restlessness was like the ghostly pulse of a great living body,
still for a time, then moving, hiding, whispering between the clouds in
the sky and the deeper shadowed earth below. A night of uneasiness, of
unseen forces chained and stifled, of impending doubt and oppressive
lifelessness.

There was no wind, yet under the stars gray masses of cloud sped as if
in flight.

There was no breeze in the treetops, yet they whispered and sighed.

In the strange spell of this midnight, heavy with its unrest, the
wilderness lay half asleep, half awake, with the mysterious stillness
of death enshrouding it.

At the edge of the white sands of Wollaston, whose broad water was like
oil tonight, stood the tepees of Yellow Bird's people. Smoke-blackened
and seasoned by wind and rain they were dark blotches sentineling the
shore of the big lake. Behind them, beyond the willows, were the Indian
dogs. From them came an occasional whine, a deep sigh, the snapping of
a jaw, and in the gloom their bodies moved restlessly. In the tepees
was the spell of this same unrest. Sleep was never quite sure of
itself. Men, women and little children twisted and rolled, or lay
awake, and weird and distorted shapes and fancies came in dreams.

In her tepee Yellow Bird lay with her eyes wide open, staring at the
gray blur of the smoke hole above. Her husband was asleep. Sun Cloud,
tossing on her blankets, had flung one of her long braids so that it
lay across her mother's breast. Yellow Bird's slim fingers played with
its silken strands as she looked straight up into nothingness. Wide
awake, she was thinking--thinking as Slim Buck--would never be able to
think, back to the days when a white woman had been her goddess, and
when a little white boy--the woman's son--had called Yellow Bird "my
fairy."

In the gloom, with foreboding eating at her heart, Yellow Bird's red
lips parted in a smile as those days came back to her, for they were
pleasing days to think ab