t he loved
this gentle, clinging girl, with a passionate love; that he yearned to take her in his arms and shelter her from the terrible savagery before her; and that he felt it could not, must not be.
"It is but little," he replied. "Every heart has its burden, and perhaps I have mine. It is the lot of man."
She looked at him with a vague uneasiness; her susceptible nature responded dimly to the tumultuous emotions that he was trying by force of will to shut up in his own heart.
"Trouble? Oh, do I not know how bitter it is! Tell me, what do your people do when they have trouble? Do they cut off their hair and blacken their faces, as the Indians do, when they lose one they love? "
"No, they would scorn to do anything so degrad ing. He is counted bravest who makes the least display of grief and yet always cherishes a tender remembrance of the dead."
"So would I. My mother forbade me to cut off my hair or blacken my face when she died, and so I did not, though some of the Indians thought me bad for not doing so. And your people are not afraid to talk of the dead?"
"Most certainly not. Why should we be? We know that they are in a better world, and their mem ories are dear to us. It is very sweet sometimes to talk of them."
"But the Willamettes never talk of their dead, for fear they may hear their names spoken and come back. Why should they dread their coming back? Ah, if my mother only would come back! How I used to long and pray for it!"
