hief's thoughts and
enable her to get away to the Potlatch-house without his becoming aware
of her perturbation. Fumbling uneasily with the handkerchief in her
hand she dropped it. As she stooped to pick it up an exclamation
escaped her. She had been resting her head against the up-curving prow
of the canoe, and now, as she moved, she became aware, by a sharp
painful tug, that her hair had become entangled in some torn rivets
embedded in the tarpaulin.

Instantly Kilbuck was behind her reaching across her shoulders to
release the strands. They refused to come away.

After a moment of ineffectual tugging, Ellen removed a pin from the
soft, thick coil. Loosed by their efforts with the tangle, her hair
shook down and tumbled in a lustrous mass below her waist. She felt
Kilbuck's fingers working at the strands about the broken rivet.

Suddenly he was still, his hand grasping a long strand of the mass.

"Mrs. Boreland, there is a superstition among the Thlingets to the
effect that whenever a man carries a lock of a white woman's hair he is
protected from any kind of violence--no matter what he may have done to
deserve punishment. Your hair is of such a rare shade and texture,
there would be no mistaking a lock of it, would there?"

With a swift movement his hand slipped beneath the Chilcat blanket.
There was a glint of steel, and the next moment he had severed the lock
from the shining mass. Ellen started back, snatching up her hair to
wind it into its accustomed knot, but before she could utter the words
that sprang to her lips there was a sound of running footsteps.

"Ellen! Ellen!" came the voice of Jean, as the girl sped toward them
down the pathway. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

She glanced at the White Chief with surprise, suspicion and disapproval
succeeding each other in her eyes. She made no effort to conceal her
dislike of the trader of Katleean.

"Come, Ellen. Let's go back to Shane."

Jean took her sister's hand and the White Chief watched their
retreating figures for several moments. . . . From beneath his blanket
he drew the long lock of hair he had stolen. One hand passed gently,
caressingly along the length of it. It clung softly to his finger like
a live thing. . . . The hair of native women was long and thick, but
coarse, and even after long residence in the trader's quarters seemed
to hold the faint salmon tang of the smoke-house. But this. . . . His
lip lifted in his