Northern Lights, Volume 1. by Parker, Gilbert, 1860-1932

Untutored as she was, she read him, felt what was going on in him. She saw the tears spring to his eyes. Then, coming close to him she said softly, slowly: "I must go with you if you go, because you must be with me when--oh, hai-yai, my chief, shall we go from here? Here in this lodge wilt thou be with thine own people--thine own, thou and I--and thine to come." The great passion in her heart made the lie seem very truth.

With a cry he got to his feet, and stood staring at her for a moment, scarcely comprehending; then suddenly he clasped her in his arms.

"Mitiahwe--Mitiahwe, oh, my little girl!" he cried. "You and me--and our own--our own people!" Kissing her, he drew her down beside him on the couch. "Tell me again--it is so at last?" he said, and she whispered in his ear once more.

In the middle of the night he said to her, "Some day, perhaps, we will go East--some day, perhaps."

"But now?" she asked softly.

"Not now--not if I know it," he answered. "I've got my heart nailed to the door of this lodge."

As he slept she got quietly out, and, going to the door of the lodge, reached up a hand and touched the horse-shoe.

"Be good Medicine to me," she said. Then she prayed. "O Sun, pity me that it may be as I have said to him. O pity me, great Father!"

In the days to come Swift Wing said that it was her Medicine; when her hand was burned to the wrist in the dark ritual she had performed with the Medicine Man the night that Mitiahwe fought for her man--but Mitiahwe said it was her Medicine, the horse-shoe, which brought one of Dingan's own people to the lodge, a little girl with Mitiahwe's eyes and form and her father's face. Truth has many mysteries, and the faith of the woman was great; and so it was that, to the long end, Mitiahwe kept her man. But truly she was altogether a woman, and had good fortune.

ONCE AT RED MAN'S RIVER

"It's got to be settled to-night, Nance. This game is up here, up for ever. The redcoat police from Ottawa are coming, and they'll soon be roostin' in this post; the Injuns are goin', the buffaloes are most gone, and the fur trade's dead in these parts. D'ye see?"

The woman did not answer the big, broad-shouldered man bending over her, but remained looking into the fire with wide, abstracted eyes and a face somewhat set.

"You and your brother Bantry's got to go. This store ain't worth a cent now. The Hudson's Bay Company'll come along with the redcoats, and they'll set up a nice little Sunday-school business here for what they call 'agricultural settlers.' There'll be a railway, and the Yankees'll send up their marshals to work with the redcoats on the border, and--"

"And the days of smuggling will be over," put in the girl in a low voice. "No more bull-wackers and muleskinners 'whooping it up'; no more Blackfeet and Piegans drinking alcohol and water, and cutting each others' throats. A nice quiet time coming on the border, Abe, eh?"