e as velvet over his storm-beaten face. She believed that
he was asleep, and a warm flood of shame swept through him at the thought
of his hypocrisy. The birch flared up suddenly, and he saw the glisten of
her hair, the glow of her eyes, and the startled change that came into them
when she saw that his own eyes were wide open, and looking up at her.
Before she could move he had caught her hand, and was holding it tighter to
his face--against his lips. The birch bark died as suddenly as it had
flared up; he heard her breathing quickly, he saw her great eyes melt away
like lustrous stars into the returning gloom, and a wild, irresistible
impulse moved him. He raised his free hand to the dark head, and drew it
down to him, holding it against his feverish face while he whispered
Rameses's prayer of thankfulness in Cree:

"The spirits bless you forever, _Meeani_."

The nearness of her, the touch of her heavy hair, the caress of her breath
stirred him still more deeply with the strange, new emotion that was born
in him, and in the darkness he found and kissed a pair of lips, soft and
warm.

The woman stirred before the fire. The girl drew back, her breath coming
almost sobbingly. And then the thought of what he had done rushed in a
flood of horror upon Roscoe. These wild people had saved his life; they had
given him to eat of their last fish; they were nursing him back from the
very threshold of death--and he had already repaid them by offering to the
Cree maiden next to the greatest insult that could come to her people. He
remembered what Rameses had told him--that the Cree girl's first kiss was
her betrothal kiss; that it was the white garment of her purity, the pledge
of her fealty forever. He lifted himself upon his elbow, but the girl had
run to the door. Voices came from outside, and the two men reentered the
tepee. He understood enough of what was said to learn that the camp had
been holding council, and that two men were about to make an effort to
reach the nearest post. Each tepee was to furnish these two men a bit of
food to keep them alive on their terrible hazard, and the woman brought
forth the half of a fish. She cut it into quarters, and with one of the
pieces the elder man went out again into the night. The younger man spoke
to the girl. He called her Oachi, and to Roscoe's astonishment spoke in
French.

"If they do not come back, or if we do not find meat in seven days," he
said, "we will die."

Roscoe m