te."

The third time Oachi knelt close down at his side, and when he refused the
food again there came a strange light into her eyes, and she said, "If you
starve--I starve!"

It was the first revelation to him. He put up his hands. They touched her
face. Some potent spirit in him carried him across all gulfs. In that
moment, thrilling, strange, he was heart and soul of the First People. In
an instant he had drifted back a thousand years, beyond the memory of
cities, of clubs, of all that went with civilization. A wild, half savage
longing filled him. One of his hands slipped to her shining hair, and
suddenly their faces lay close to each other, and he knew that in that
moment love had come to him from the fount of glory itself.

* * * * *

Days followed--black days filled with the endless terrors of the storm. And
yet they were days of a strange contentment which Roscoe had never felt
before. Oachi and her father were with him a great deal in the tepee which
they had given up to him. On the third day Roscoe noticed that Oachi's
little hands were bruised and red and he found that the chief's daughter
had gone out to dig down through ice and snow with the other women after
roots. The camp lived entirely on roots now--wild flag and moose roots
ground up and cooked in a batter. On this same day, late in the afternoon,
there came a low wailing grief from one of the tepees, a moaning sound that
pitched itself to the key of the storm until it seemed to be a part of it.
A child had died, and the mother was mourning. That night another of the
camp huntsmen failed to return at dusk.

The next day Roscoe was able to move about in his tepee without pain. Oachi
and her father were with him when, for the first time, he got out his comb
and military brushes and began grooming his touselled hair. Oachi watched
him, and suddenly, seeing the wondering pleasure in her eyes, he held out
the brushes to her. "You may have them, Oachi," he said, and the girl
accepted them with a soft little cry of delight. To his amazement she began
unbraiding her hair immediately, and then she stood up before him, hidden
to her knees in her wonderful wealth of shining tresses, and Roscoe Cummins
thought in this moment that he had never seen a woman more beautiful than
the half Cree girl. When they had gone he still saw her, and the vision
troubled him. They came in again at night, when the fire was sending red
and yellow lights