What were
they to me? I had loved them when I was of them, but I came on to a
better life. The Indian life is to the white life as the parfleche pouch
to--to this." She laid her hand upon a purse of delicate silver mesh
hanging at her waist. "When your eyes are opened you must go on, you
cannot stop. There is no going back. When you have read of all there is
in the white man's world, when you have seen, then there is no returning.
You may end it all, if you wish, in the snow, in the river, but there is
no returning. The lodge of a chief--ah, if my father had heard you say
that--!"
The Indian woman shifted heavily in her chair, then shrank away from the
look fixed on her. Once or twice she made as if she would speak, but
sank down in the great chair, helpless and dismayed.
"The lodge of a chief!" the girl continued in a low, bitter voice.
"What is the lodge of a chief? A smoky fire, a pot, a bed of skins, aih-
yi! If the lodges of the Indians were millions, and I could be head of
all, and rule the land, yet would I rather be a white girl in the hut of
her white man, struggling for daily bread among the people who sweep the
buffalo out, but open up the land with the plough, and make a thousand
live where one lived before.
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