The earliest stars had picked their way through the blue canopy, when the men from the camp crossed over to the fishing village of the Indians; for it was only when the moon of May, or of June, lightened the sky that the red men moved their lodges to the north--their winter resort was the States.

"Dan--umph! How?" grunted a tall brave lounging at the opening of the tepee. He arose, and took his pipe from his lips, glancing with a.s.sumed indifference at the handsome young stranger, though, in reality, Black Bow was not above curiosity.

"How?" returned Overton, and reached out his hand. "I am glad to see that the lodges by the river hold friends instead of strangers," he continued.

"This, too, is a friend--one from the big ocean where the sun rises. We call him Max."

"Umph! How?" and Lyster glanced in comical dismay at his friend as his hand was grasped by one so dirty, so redolent of cooked fish, as the one Black Bow was gracious enough to offer him.

Thereupon they were asked to seat themselves on the blanket of that dignitary--no small favor in the eyes of an Indian. Overton talked of the fish, and the easy markets there would soon be for them, when the boats and the cars came pushing swiftly through the forests; of the many wolves Black Bow had killed in the winter past; of how well the hunting shirt of deer-skin had worn that Black Bow's squaw had sold him when he met them last on the trail; of any and many things but the episode of the evening of which Lyster was waiting to hear.

As the dusk fell, Lyster fully appreciated the picturesque qualities of the scene before him. The many dogs and their friendly attentions disturbed him somewhat, but he sat there feeling much as if in a theater; for those barbarians, in their groupings, reminded him of bits of stage setting he had seen at some time or another.

One big fire was outside the lodges, and over it a big kettle hung, and the steam drifted up and over the squaws and children gathered there. Some of them came over and looked at him, and several grunted at Overton. Black Bow would order them away once in a while with a lordly "Klehowyeh," much as he did the dogs; and, like the dogs, they would promptly return, and gaze with half-veiled eyes at the elegance of the high boots covering the shapely limbs of Mr. Lyster.

The men were away on a hunt, Black Bow explained; only he and Akkomi, the head chief, had not gone. Akkomi was growing very old and no longer led the hunts; therefore a young chief must ever be near to his call; so Black Bow was also absent from the hunt.

"We stay until two suns rise," and Overton pointed across to the camp of the whites. "To-morrow I would ask that Black Bow and the chief Akkomi eat at our table. This is the kinsman--_tillic.u.ms_--of the men who make the great work where the mines are and the boats that are big and the cars that go faster than the horses run. He wants that the two great chiefs of the Kootenais eat of his food before he goes back again to the towns of the white people."

Lyster barely repressed a groan as he heard the proposal made, but Overton was blandly oblivious of the appealing expression of his friend; the thing he was interested in was to bring Black Bow to a communicative mood, for not a sign could he discover of a white woman in the camp, though he was convinced there was or had been one there.

The invitation to eat succeeded. Black Bow would tell the old chief of their visit; maybe he would talk with them now, but he was not sure. The chief was tired, his thoughts had been troubled that day. The son of his daughter had been near death in the river there. He was only a child, and could not swim yet; a young squaw of the white people had kept him from drowning, and the squaw of Akkomi had been making medicines for her ever since.

"Young squaw! Where comes a white squaw from to the Kootenai lakes?" asked Overton, incredulously. "Half white, half red, maybe."

"White," affirmed their host. "Where? Humph! Where come the sea-birds from that get lost when they fly too far from sh.o.r.e? Kootenai not know, but they drop down sometimes by the rivers. So this one has come. She has talked with Akkomi; but he tell nothing; only maybe we will all dance a dance some day, and then she will be Kootenai, too."

"_Adopt_ her," muttered Overton, and glanced at Lyster; but that gentleman's attention was given at the moment to a couple of squaws who walked past and looked at him out of the corners of their eyes, so he missed that portion of Black Bow's figurative information.

"I have need to see the chief Akkomi," said Overton, after a moment's thought. "It would be well if I could see him before sleeping. Of these,"

producing two colored handkerchiefs, "will you give one to him, that he may know I am in earnest, the other will you not wear for Dan?"

The brave grunted a pleased a.s.sent, and carefully selecting the handkerchief with the brightest border, thrust it within his hunting shirt. He then proceeded to the lodge of the old chief, bearing the other ostentatiously in his hand, as though he were carrying the fate of his nation in the gaudy bit of silk and cotton weaving.

"What are you trading for?" asked Lyster, and looked like protesting, when Overton answered:

"An audience with Akkomi."

"Great Caesar! is one of that sort not enough? I'll never feel that my hand is clean again until I can give it a bath with some sort of disinfectant stuff. Now there's another one to greet! I'll not be able to eat fish again for a year. Why didn't luck send the old vagabond hunting with the rest? I can endure the women, for they don't sprawl around you and shake hands with you. Just tell me what I'm to donate for being allowed to bask in the light of Akkomi's countenance? Haven't a thing over here but some cigars."

Overton only laughed silently, and gave more attention to the lodge of Akkomi than to his companion's disgust. When Black Bow emerged from the tent, he watched him sharply as he approached, to learn from the Indian's countenance, if possible, the result of the message.

"If he sends a royal request that we partake of supper, I warn you, I shall be violently and immediately taken ill--too ill to eat," whispered Lyster, meaningly.

Black Bow seated himself, filled his pipe, handed it to a squaw to light, and then sent several puffs of smoke skyward, ere he said:

"Akkomi is old, and the time for his rest has come. He says the door of his lodge is open--that Dan may go within and speak what there is to say.

But the stranger--he must wait till the day comes again."

"Snubbed me, by George!" laughed Lyster. "Well, am I then to wait outside the portals, and be content with the crumbs you choose to carry out to me?"

"Oh, amuse yourself," returned Overton, carelessly, and was on his feet at once. "I leave you to the enjoyment of Black Bow."

A moment later he reached the lodge of the old chief and, without ceremony, walked in to the center of it.

A slight fire was there,--just enough to kill the dampness of the river's edge, and over it the old squaw of Akkomi bent, raking the dry sticks, until the flames fluttered upward and outlined the form of the chief, coiled on a pile of skins and blankets against the wall.

He nodded a welcome, said "Klehowyeh," and motioned with his pipe that his visitor should be seated on another pile of clothing and bedding, near his own person.

Then it was that Overton discovered a fourth person in the shadows opposite him--the white woman he had been curious about.

And it was not a woman at all,--only a girl of perhaps sixteen years instead--who shrank back into the gloom, and frowned on him with great, dark, unchildlike eyes, and from under brows wide and straight as those of a sculptor's model for a young Greek G.o.d; for, if any beauty of feature was hers, it was boyish in its character. As for beauty of expression, she a.s.suredly did not cultivate that. The curved red mouth was sullen and the eyes antagonistic.

One sharp glance showed Overton all this, and also that there was no Indian blood back of the rather pale cheek.

"So you got out of the water alive, did you?" he asked, in a matter of fact way, as though the dip in the river was a usual thing to see.

She raised her eyes and lowered them again with a sort of insolence, as though to show her resentment of the fact that he addressed her at all.

"I rather guess I'm alive," she answered, curtly, and the visitor turned to the chief.

"I saw to-day your child's child in the waters of the Kootenai. I saw the white friend lifting him up out of the river, and fighting with death for him. It would have been a good thing for a man to do, Akkomi. I crossed the water to-night, to see if your boy is well once more, or if there is any way I can do service for the young white squaw who is your friend."

The old Indian smoked in silence for a full minute. He was a sharp-eyed, shrewd-faced old fellow. When he spoke, it was in the Chinook jargon, and with a significant nod toward the girl, as though she was not to hear or understand his words.

"It is true, the son of my daughter is again alive. The breath was gone when the young squaw reached him, but she was in time. Dan know the young squaw, maybe?"

"No, Akkomi. Who?"

The old fellow shook his head, as if not inclined to give the information required.

"She tell white men if she want white men to know," he observed. "The heart of Akkomi is heavy for her--heavy. A lone trail is a hard one for a squaw in the Kootenai land--a white squaw who is young. She rests here, and may eat of our meat all her days if she will."

Overton glanced again at the girl, who was evidently, from the words of the chief, following some lone trail through the wilderness,--a trail starting whence, and leading whither? All that he could read was that no happiness kept her company.

"But the life of a red squaw in the white men's camps is a bad life,"

resumed the old man, after a season of deliberation; "and the life of the white squaw in the red man's village is bad as well."

Overton nodded gravely, but said nothing. By the manner of Akkomi, he perceived that some important thought was stirring in the old man's mind, and that it would develop into speech all the sooner if not hurried.

"Of all the men of the white camps it is you Akkomi is gladdest to talk to this day," continued the chief, after another season of silence; "for you, Dan, talk with a tongue that is straight, and you go many times where the great towns are built."

"The words of Akkomi are true words," a.s.sented Overton, "and my ears listen to hear what he will say."

"Where the white men live is where this young white squaw should live,"

said Akkomi, and the listening squaw of Akkomi grunted a.s.sent. It was easy to read that she looked with little favor on the strange white girl within their lodge. To be sure, Akkomi was growing old; but the wife of Akkomi had memories of his l.u.s.ty youth and of various wars she had been forced to wage on ambitious squaws who fancied it would be well to dwell in the lodge of the head chief.

And remembering those days, though so long past, the old squaw was sorely averse to the adoption dance for the white girl who lay on their blankets, and thought it good, indeed, that she go to live in the villages of the white people.