ave
done with a little child.

"I wish you would sing, Oachi," he said.

For a moment the girl's dark eyes glowed up at him. Then she drew back
softly, and seated herself before the fire, with her back turned toward
him, close beside her father. A strange quiet filled the tepee. Over their
heads the wailing storm seemed to die for a moment; and then something rose
in its place, so low and gentle at first that it seemed like a whisper, but
growing in sweetness and volume until Roscoe Cummins sat erect, his eyes
flashing, his hands clenched, looking at Oachi. The storm rose, and with it
the song--a song that reached down into his soul, stirring him now with its
gladness, now with a half savage pain; but always with a sweetness that
engulfed for him all other things, until he was listening only to the
voice. And then silence came again within the tepee. Over the mountain the
wind burst more fiercely. The chief sat motionless. In Oachi's hair the
firelight glistened with a dull radiance. There was quiet, and yet Roscoe
still heard the voice. He knew that he would always hear it, that it would
never die.

Not until long afterward did he know that Oachi had sung to him the great
love song of the Crees.

That night and the next day, and the terrible night and day that followed,
Roscoe fought with himself. He won--when alone--and lost when Oachi was
with him. In some ways she knew intuitively that he loved to see her with
her splendid hair down, and she would sit at his feet and brush it, while
he tried to hide his admiration and smother the passion which sprang up in
his breast when she was near. He knew, in these moments, that it was too
late to kill the thing that was born in him--the craving of his heart and
his soul for this girl of the First People who had laid her life at his
feet and who was removed from him by barriers which he could never pass. On
the afternoon of his seventh day in camp an Indian hunter ran in from the
forest nearly crazed with joy. He had ventured farther away than the
others, and had found a moose-yard. He had killed two of the animals. The
days of famine were over. Oachi brought the first news to Roscoe. Her face
was radiant with joy, her eyes burned like stars, and in her excitement she
stretched out her arms to him as she cried out the wonderful news. Roscoe
took her two hands.

"Is it true, Oachi?" he asked. "They have surely killed meat?"

"Yes--yes--yes," she cried. "They have killed me