“Nika klosh cloochman!” clucked the Indian girl.
Jean looked at her inquiringly.
“Nika wake cumtux Siwah wa-wa?” asked the dusky maiden, offering her hand.
“She says she is a good Indian girl, and asks if you understand her,” said Siwash, who was leisurely putting the room to rights. “She’s my little sister; heap good. Ugh! Nika speak jargon?”
“No, Siwash.”
But the maiden’s manner, though coy, was assuring, and Jean clasped her hand eagerly. She was a graceful, nimble, and pretty creature; and Jean thought with a sigh of regret of the ugly transformation awaiting her under the cares and burdens of maturity and maternity, when, no longer like “the wild gazelle, with its nimble feet,” she would resemble other elderly Indian women.
“What is your name, little girl?” she asked, as the maiden dropped gracefully upon the hearth at her feet.
“Nika wake cumtux Boston wa-wa.”
“She says she doesn’t understand you,” grunted Siwash.
“Ah-to-ke-nika a-it sewar.”
“She says she has a good heart.”
“Why doesn’t she speak her name?”
The girl crouched low on the hearth and spread her shapely brown fingers before the dying embers.
“Nika Le-Le. Nika caid.”
“She says her name is Le-Le, and she is a slave.”
“Your sister? and a slave?”
“I, too, was a slave,” said Siwash, “but I bought my freedom; and when I get ten horses of my own, I will buy Le-Le’s. Could you help us? Your father is good.”
“A good heart isn’t always accompanied by a full purse,” thought Jean.
“Who imagines that he has a property interest in your sister?” she asked aloud.
“Our chief, Tyee of the Nootkas. He captured both of us in a war with our people, the Seattles, many, many moons ago.”
“Ugh! Way-siyah! Whulge!” cried the girl, writhing like a captured eel.
“Mac-kam-mah-shish, copa-nika?”
“She asks if you cannot buy her.”
“Nowitka! Mika! Closh potlatch hy-u chickamin?”
“God knows I wish I could buy her,” said Jean.
No painter could have done justice to the varying expressions that alternately lighted and clouded the Madonna-like face of Le-Le, as she strained every nerve to comprehend the conversation. And when at last every vestige of her awakening hope had settled into a conviction of failure, she buried her face in her hands, and, bending forward, shook her black abundant hair over her face and body to the floor, and uttered a piercing wail, making Jean’s blood curdle.
“Le-Le’s cold!” cried the girl, crouching lower, till the embers singed the ends of her straying locks.
“Don’t cry, Le-Le dear. You have come to spend the night with me,” exclaimed Jean, seizing her gently by the arm.
“Nika wake cumtux,” cried the girl.
“You have come to sleep,” pointing to the bed in the corner.
“Nowitka! sleep! Nika cumtux.”
“She understands,” said Jean, rising and turning to Siwash. “Good-night.”
Jean was too full of contending emotions for sleep. She lingered long upon the hearth. “I could stay here always,” she exclaimed in a low voice, but loud enough to awaken the wary maiden from her slumbers on the bed. But the mutual vocabulary of the twain did not admit of satisfactory conversation, and the Indian girl sank back into unconsciousness.
As she sat there thinking, a pair of kindly eyes seemed watching her every movement with a tender devotion that made her heart beat wildly. “I wish I’d never teased or laughed at Mame,” she sighed, as the Reverend Thomas Rogers flitted past her inner vision. “What is Life but Love? And who and what is Love but God? And what is God but the wonderful Mystery that is both Life and Love?”
Le-Le was away in dreamland, on the enchanted shores of Whulge,—the Indian name for the magnificent body of water known to the civilized world as Puget Sound.
“This is holy ground,” cried Jean, so softly to herself that none but Cupid heard. “These lowly walls will be a sacred memory to me through all the rest of my life. But life will mean worse than nothing to me without my one hero. Must I go away to-morrow? Oh, my God! can I ever live again, away from this lodge in the wilderness? Guard and guide my love, O Spirit of Life, and shield him with Thine everlasting arms!”
Then, recollecting that she had not prayed, as usual, for the dear ones in camp, she lovingly invoked divine protection for each and all, and was soon in a sound, refreshing sleep.
“Yes, daddie dear, I’m safe and sound,” she cried, as she awoke to consciousness, to find that the sun was shining and her father’s familiar voice was calling her name in vigorous tones at the door.
Jean hastily donned her clothing, which, simple as it was, excited the envy of Le-Le. “Mika klosh, cultus potlatch?” she said inquiringly, as she fondled a blue-and-white neck-ribbon, which was not over clean.
“Cultus potlatch?” she asked again.
Although Jean was not certain as to the maiden’s meaning, she gave her the ribbon and tried to think her excusable.
“Did you want it? Was that what you meant?”
“Nowitka! Cultus potlatch! Hy-as klosh!”
Jean tied the ribbon in a double bow-knot around the girl’s tawny neck, and Le-Le, studying its effect in the little mirror on the wall, exclaimed with a low chuckle, “Hi-yu klosh!”
“Oh, daddie darling,” exclaimed Jean, opening the door and springing to his embrace, “did you think your historian was lost?”
“Yes; or worse!” replied her father, his anger displacing anxiety as soon as he saw that she was safe. “This isn’t the first time you’ve lost yourself on this trip. If it happens again, I’ll—”
“Don’t chide or punish the young lady, please!” interposed her obliging host. “If you had seen how badly frightened and anxious she was last night when she found herself left alone among strangers, you’d forgive her without a word.”
“That’s so, daddie,” sobbed Jean.
“I surrendered my country-seat to her, and sent for this little Indian maiden to keep her company.”
There was a touch of humor in his tone, augmented by a kindly smile, which sent the hot blood into the truant’s face and made her heart beat hard.
“Won’t you thank the gentleman, daddie? I might have been murdered but for him.”
“Of course I thank the gentleman; but that doesn’t lessen your offence. You deserve a good thrashing!”
“Which I’ll never get, daddie dear!” Then turning to her host, she added, “Daddie never whips us, but he threatens us sometimes.”
“I think I owe you a little explanation, Captain,” said the host. “I might have risked taking your daughter across the river in a rowboat last night if it had been safe to trust her on the other side after dark. There are Indians camped along the way; and, though they are peaceful enough when they are compelled to be, they are not trustworthy under all circumstances. But my servant, Siwash, has breakfast ready and waiting. I can’t allow you to go on till you have broken your fast.”
The host conducted his guests into the dugout to a table loaded with a bountiful supply of coffee, fish, venison, hot biscuit, beans, and wapatoes,—the last two dishes being deftly exhumed from the depths of a bed of ashes, where they had been cooked to perfection during the night.
“Your servant is an artist in his business,” said the Captain, in praise of the food.
“Yes, Captain. I found him a slave, and, seeing he was superior to most of his class, I purchased him for what you would consider a trifle. Then, as time wore on, I encouraged him to buy his freedom from me. He is now trying to purchase his sister; but he finds it slow work, as her value increases as she gets older and better able to dig camas and tan buffalo hides.”
“It is awful to enslave the Indians!” cried Jean. “The Government ought to stop it!”
“Slavery among the Indians is no worse than among the negroes,” said her host, with an admiring smile.
“Women are not responsible for slavery, sir,” said Jean.
“But women are very ardent defenders of slavery wherever it exists, my daughter,” added her father, gravely.
“That’s because they themselves are servants without wages, daddie. Mother used to say that the worst slave-drivers she ever saw down South were the overseers who were slaves themselves. Women are not angels, but they are doing the best they can without political power.”
“I don’t know but you are right, Miss Ranger. Women ought to have power. My sovereign is a woman, and we have no slavery in England.”
“Thank you for giving me the best of the argument, Mr. Ashleigh. But I see that daddie is impatient, and we must be going.”
“I hope you’ll pardon me for referring to a proposition you made last evening, although you may have changed your mind, Miss Ranger. You proposed writing to my mother. Will you do it?”
“Ask daddie.”
“I have no objection, of course,” said her father, “if it is understood that I shall see the letters.”
“Of course,” responded Jean.
“May I have the pleasure of corresponding with your daughter, sir?”
“Yes, if I can see the correspondence.”
This was a greater concession than Jean had dared to hope for.
“Thank you, Captain Ranger. I am sure my mother will be delighted with the young lady’s letters. She has awakened my dormant sense of filial duty and inspired me with a determination to return to it. I shall not neglect my mother again.”
“Come, Jean! It is high time we were off!”
As her father spoke, the possible termination to this peculiar meeting gave him a heartache.
The last good-byes were spoken, and Captain Ranger heaved a sigh of relief. “It will be out of sight, out of mind, with both of ’em in less than a month!” he said, sotto voce.