ade an effort to rise, and the effort sent a rush of fire into his
head. He turned dizzy, and fell back with a groan. In an instant the girl
was at his side--ahead of the man. Her hands were at his face, her eyes
glowing again. He felt that he was falling into a deep sleep. But the eyes
did not leave him. They were wonderful eyes, glorious eyes! He dreamed of
them in the strange sleep that came to him, and they grew more and more
beautiful, shining with a light which thrilled him even in his
unconsciousness. After a time there came a black, more natural sort of
night to him. He awoke from it refreshed. It was day. The tepee was filled
with light, and for the first time he looked about him. He was alone. A
fire burned low among the stones; over it simmered a pot. The earth floor
of the tepee was covered with deer and caribou skins, and opposite him
there was another bunk. He drew himself painfully to a sitting posture and
found that it was his shoulder and hip that hurt him. He rose to his feet,
and stood balancing himself feebly when the door to the tepee was drawn
back and Oachi entered. At sight of him, standing up from his bed, she made
a quick movement to draw back, but Roscoe reached out his hands with a low
cry of pleasure.

"Oachi," he cried softly. "Come in!" He spoke in French, and Oachi's face
lighted up like sunlight. "I am better," he said. "I am well. I want to
thank you--and the others." He made a step toward her, and the strength of
his left leg gave way. He would have fallen if she had not darted to him so
quickly that she made a prop for him, and her eyes looked up into his
whitened face, big and frightened and filled with pain.

"Oo-ee-ee," she said in Cree, her red lips rounded as she saw him flinch,
and that one word, a song in a word; came to him like a flute note.

"It hurts--a little," he said. He dropped back on his bunk, and Oachi sank
upon the skins at his feet, looking up at him steadily with her wonderful,
pure eyes, her mouth still rounded, little wrinkles of tense anxiety drawn
in her forehead. Roscoe laughed.

For a few moments his soul was filled with a strange gladness. He reached
out his hand and stroked it over her shining hair, and a radiance such as
he had never seen leapt into her eyes. "You--talk--French?" he asked
slowly.

She nodded.

"Then tell me this--you are hungry--starving?"

She nodded again, and made a cup of her two small hands. "No meat. This
little--so much--flo