womanly modesty seemed anxious to at once go
on. In all probability not a word would have passed between them. As
it happened, however, just at the moment when the maiden swung her load
of game over her pack, the shawl she was wearing fell back for an
instant from her arm, and on it Oowikapun's quick eye detected the
beautiful bracelet that he had seen that morning on the arm that had
closed the door of his little lodge.

This discovery filled him with curiosity, and he resolved to find out
who she was, and why she had shown him, a stranger, so much kindness.
But the difficulty was how to begin. His Indian training told him it
would be a breach of decorum to speak to her; but so great was his
anxiety to find the solution of what was a mystery even to the villagers
themselves, that he felt he must not let the opportunity pass by. Man's
bluntness is his own poor substitute for woman's superior tact, and so
as she was about to pass he said: "Have I not seen that beautiful
bracelet before?"

He tried to speak kindly, but he was excited and fearful that she would
be gone, and so his voice sounded harsh and stern, and it startled her,
and her face flushed a little; yet she quickly regained her composure,
and then quietly said: "It was made years ago, so you have seen it
before."

"Was it not on the arm of the friend who made the fire and prepared the
food and brought the clothing for the poor, foolish stranger?" he asked.

She raised her piercing black eyes to his, as though she would look into
his soul, and said, without hesitancy: "Yes, it was; and Oowikapun was
indeed foolish, if not worse."

Startled and confounded at this reply, given in such decided tones by
this maiden, Oowikapun, in spite of all his efforts to appear unmoved,
felt abashed before her, and his eyes fell under her searching gaze.

Recovering himself as well as he could, he said: "Will the fair maiden
please tell me what she means?"

"Yes," she answered. "What she means is that she is very much surprised
that a man who for days has been a guest in the wigwam of Memotas and
Meyooachimoowin, and who has heard their songs and prayers to the Good
Spirit, should again be found in the circle of the devil dance."

"How do you know I was with Memotas?" he replied.

"From your own lips," she answered. "I was with the maidens, with only
a deerskin partition dividing us from the place where you told the men
of your battle with the wolf, and of Memot