, too, there was a dark tide of passion moving. In all the outlived
years this girl had ever turned to the white father rather than to her,
and she had been left more and more alone. Her man had been kind to her,
and she had been a faithful wife, but she had resented the natural
instinct of her half-breed child, almost white herself and with the
feelings and ways of the whites, to turn always to her father, as though
to a superior guide, to a higher influence and authority. Was not she
herself the descendant of Blackfoot and Piegan chiefs through generations
of rulers and warriors? Was there not Piegan and Blackfoot blood in the
girl's veins? Must only the white man's blood be reckoned when they made
up their daily account and balanced the books of their lives, credit and
debtor--misunderstanding and kind act, neglect and tenderness, reproof and
praise, gentleness and impulse, anger and caress--to be set down in the
everlasting record? Why must the Indian always give way--Indian habits,
Indian desires, the Indian way of doing things, the Indian point of view,
Indian food, Indian medicine? Was it all bad, and only that which belonged
to white life good?

"Look at your face in the glass, Pauline," she added, at last. "You are
good-looking, but it isn't the good looks of the whites. The lodge of a
chieftainess is the place for you. There you would have praise and honor;
among the whites you are only a half-breed. What is the good? Let us go
back to the life out there beyond the Muskwat River--up beyond. There is
hunting still, a little, and the world is quiet, and nothing troubles.
Only the wild dog barks at night, or the wolf sniffs at the door, and all
day there is singing. Somewhere out beyond the Muskwat the feasts go on,
and the old men build the great fires, and tell tales, and call the wind
out of the north, and make the thunder speak; and the young men ride to
the hunt or go out to battle, and build lodges for the daughters of the
tribe; and each man has his woman, and each woman has in her breast the
honor of the tribe, and the little ones fill the lodge with laughter. Like
a pocket of deerskin is every house, warm and small and full of good
things. _Hai-yai_, what is this life to that! There you will be head and
chief of all, for there is money enough for a thousand horses; and your
father was a white man, and these are the days when the white man rules.
Like clouds before the sun are the races of men, and one race