Her ear had caught a low, throaty laugh, a woman's laugh, outside. She looked inquiringly at her brother. His expression remained absent, as of one concentrated upon his own problems. She repeated the question.
"That? Oh, Katy John, I suppose, or her mother," he answered. "Siwash bunch camping around the point. The girl does some washing for us now and then. I suppose she's after Matt for some bread or something."
Stella looked out. At the cookhouse door stood a short, plump-bodied girl, dark-skinned and black-haired. Otherwise she conformed to none of Miss Benton's preconceived ideas of the aboriginal inhabitant. If she had been pinned down, she would probably have admitted that she expected to behold an Indian maiden garbed in beaded buckskin and brass ornaments. Instead, Katy John wore a white sailor blouse, a brown pleated skirt, tan shoes, and a bow of baby blue ribbon in her hair.
"Why, she talks good English," Miss Benton exclaimed, as fragments of the girl's speech floated over to her.
"Sure. As good as anybody," Charlie drawled. "Why not?"
"Well—er—I suppose my notion of Indians is rather vague," Stella admitted. "Are they all civilized and educated?"
"Most of 'em," Benton replied. "The younger generation anyhow. Say, Stell, can you cook?"
"A little," Stella rejoined guardedly. "That Indian girl's really pretty, isn't she?"
"They nearly all are when they're young," he observed. "But they are old and tubby by the time they're thirty."
Katy John's teeth shone white between her parted lips at some sally from the cook. She stood by the door, swinging a straw hat in one hand. Presently Matt handed her a parcel done up in newspaper, and she walked away with a nod to some of the loggers sitting with their backs against the bunkhouse wall.