heard of the dead white wife of
Multnomah, and of her daughter, who, it was understood among the
tribes, was to be given to Snoqualmie. He noticed, too, for the first
time the trace of the Indian in her expression, as the light faded
from it and it settled back into the despondent look habitual to it.
All that was chivalrous in his nature went out to the fair young
creature; all his being responded to the sting of her disappointment.

"I am not what you hoped I was, but your face is like the face of the
women of my own land. Shall we not be friends?"

She looked up wistfully at the handsome and noble countenance above
her, so different from the stolid visages she had known so long.

"Yes; you are not Indian."

In that one expression she unconsciously told Cecil how her sensitive
nature shrank from the barbarism around her; how the tastes and
aspirations she had inherited from her mother reached out for better
and higher things.

In a little while they were seated on a grassy bank in the shade of
the trees, talking together. She bade him tell her of his people. She
listened intently; the bright, beautiful look came back as she heard
the tale.

"They are kind to women, instead of making them mere burden-bearers;
they have pleasant homes; they dwell in cities? Then they are like my
mother's people."

"They are gentle, kind, humane. They have all the arts that light up
life and make it beautiful,--not like the tribes of this grim,
bloodstained land."

"_This_ land!" Her face darkened and she lifted her hand in a quick,
repelling gesture. "This land is a grave. The clouds lie black and
heavy on the spirit that longs for the sunlight and cannot reach it."
She turned to him again. "Go on, your words are music."

He continued, and she listened till the story of his country and his
wanderings was done. When he ended, she drew a glad, deep breath; her
eyes were sparkling with joy.

"I am content," she said, in a voice in which there was a deep
heart-thrill of happiness. "Since my mother died I have been alone,
all alone; and I longed, oh so often, for some one who talked and felt
as she did to come to me, and now you have come. I sat cold and
shivering in the night a long time, but the light and warmth have come
at last. Truly, Allah is good!"

"Allah!"

"Yes; he was my mother's God, as the Great Spirit is my father's."

"They are both names for the same All Father," replied Cecil. "They
mean the same thing, ev