Page:Bridge of the Gods (Balch).djvu/96

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

ez Perces.

my place when I am dead, and our people will still be strong."

She made no reply. What could she do against her father s granite will? All the grace and mobility were gone from her face, and it was drooping and dull almost to impassiveness. She was only an In dian girl now, waiting to learn the name of him who was to be her master.

"What is the name of the one you love? Speak it once, then never speak it again."

"Snoqualmie, chief of the Cayuses," faltered her tremulous lips.

A quick change of expression came into the gaze that was bent on her.

"Now lift your head and meet your fate like the daughter of a chief. Do not let me see your face change while I tell you whom I have chosen."

She lifted her face in a tumult of fear and dread, and her eyes fastened pathetically on the chief.

"His name is " she clasped her hands and her whole soul went out to her father in the mute suppli cation of her gaze " the chief Snoqualmie, him of whom you have thought."

Her face was bewilderment itself for an instant; the next, the sudden light, the quick flash of expres sion which transfigured it in a moment of joy or sur prise, came to her, and she raised his hand and kissed it. Was that all? Remember she had in her the deep, mute Indian nature that meets joy or anguish alike in silence. She had early learned to repress and control her emotions. Perhaps that was why she was so sad and brooding now.