unthinking serenity of her face
suddenly concentrated into a hunger of admiration, a look which changed
her, focused her careless happiness into a pointed delight.

"Look at the baby," she said quickly, "a lovely fat baby with curls,"
then slid off her horse and went toward them.

The woman drew back staring. The children ran to her, frightened as
young rabbits, and hid behind her skirts. Only the baby, grave and
unalarmed, stood his ground and Susan snatched him up. Then the mother
smiled, gratified and reassured. She had no upper front teeth, and the
wide toothless grin gave her a look of old age that had in it a curious
suggestion of debasement.

David stood by his horse, making no move to come forward. The party
repelled him. They were not only uncouth and uncomely, but they were
dirty. Dirt on an Indian was, so to speak, dirt in its place--but
unwashed women and children--! His gorge rose at it. And Susan,
always dainty as a pink, seemed entirely indifferent to it. The
children, with unkempt hair and legs caked in mud, crowded about her,
and as she held the baby against her chest, her glance dwelt on the
woman's face, with no more consciousness of its ugliness than when she
looked over the prairie there was consciousness of Nature's supreme
perfection.

On the way back to camp he asked her about it. Why, if she objected to
the Indian's dirt, had she been oblivious to that of the women and the
children? He put it judicially, with impersonal clearness as became a
lawyer. She looked puzzled, then laughed, her fresh, unusual laugh:

"I'm sure I don't know. I don't know why I do everything or why I like
this thing and don't like that. I don't always have a reason, or if I
do I don't stop to think what it is. I just do things because I want
to and feel them because I can't help it. I like children and so I
wanted to talk to them and hear about them from their mother."

"But would your liking for them make you blind to such a thing as dirt?"

"I don't know. Maybe it would. When you're interested in anything or
anybody small things don't matter."

"Small things! Those children were a sight!"

"Yes, poor little brats! No one had washed the baby for weeks. The
woman said she was too tired to bother and it wouldn't bathe in the
creeks with the other children, so they let it go. If we kept near
them I could wash it for her. I could borrow it and wash it every
morning. But there's no use think