ne they belong to. They love to sit in the sun at
the door of the wigwam and say to the other women, 'My man is brave;
he leads the war party; he has many scalps at his belt. Who is brave
like my man?'"

Wallulah shuddered. He saw it, and the sparkle of malice in his eyes
flashed into sudden anger.

"Does the young squaw tremble at these things? Then she must get used
to them. She must learn to bring wood and water for Snoqualmie's
lodge, too. She must learn to wait on him as an Indian's wife ought.
The old wrinkled squaws, who are good for nothing but to be beasts of
burden, shall teach her."

There came before her a picture of the ancient withered hags, the
burden-bearers, the human vampires of the Indian camps, the vile in
word and deed, the first to cry for the blood of captives, the most
eager to give taunts and blows to the helpless; were they to be her
associates, her teachers? Involuntarily she lifted her hand, as if to
push from her a future so dreadful.

"Wallulah will bring the wood and the water. Wallulah will work. The
old women need not teach her."

"That is well. But one thing more you must learn; and that is to hold
up your head and not look like a drooping captive. Smile, laugh, be
gay. Snoqualmie will have no clouded face, no bent head in his
lodge."

She looked at him imploringly. The huge form, the swarthy face, seemed
to dominate her, to crush her down with their barbarian strength and
ferocity. She dropped her eyes again, and lay there on the furs like
some frightened bird shrinking from the glance of a hawk.

"I will work; I will bear burdens," she repeated, in a trembling tone.
"But I cannot smile and laugh when my heart is heavy."

He watched her with a half angry, half malicious regard, a regard that
seemed ruthlessly probing into every secret of her nature.

She knew somehow that he was aware of her love for Cecil, and she
dreaded lest he should taunt her with it. Anything but that. He knew
it, and held it back as his last and most cruel blow. Over his bronzed
face flitted no expression of pity. She was to him like some delicate
wounded creature of the forest, that it was a pleasure to torture. So
he had often treated a maimed bird or fawn,--tantalizing it, delighted
by its fluttering and its pain, till the lust of torture was gratified
and the death-blow was given.

He sat regarding her with a sneering, malicious look for a little
while; then he said,--

"It is hard to smile on