ualmie."
Wallulah shrunk as if he had struck her a blow; then she looked at him desperately, pleadingly.
"Do not say such cruel things. I will be a faith ful wife to you. I will never see the white man again."
The sneering malice in his eyes gave way to the gleam of exultant anger.
"Faithful! You knew you were to be my woman when you let him put his arms around you and say soft things to you. Faithful! You would leave Snoqualmie for him now, could it be so. But you say well that you will never see him again."
She gazed at him in terror.
"What do you mean? Has anything happened to him? Have they harmed him? "
Over the chiefs face came the murderous expres sion that was there when he slew the Bannock war rior at the torture stake.
"Harmed him! Do you think that he could meet you alone and say sweet things to you and caress you, you who were the same as my squaw, and I not harm him? He is dead; I slew him."
False though it was, in so far as Snoqualmie claimed to have himself slain Cecil, it was thoroughly in keep ing with Indian character. White captives were often told, "I killed your brother," or, "This is your hus band s scalp," when perhaps the person spoken of was alive and well.
"Dead!"
He threw his tomahawk at her feet.
"His blood is on it. You are Snoqualmie s squaw; wash it off."
Dead, dead, her lover was dead! That wa
