“There are two or three I don’t like at all—half-breeds and white men. One is an ‘assistant farmer;’ they are the men who are supposed to teach the Indians farming, but sometimes I think they don’t do much but run errands for the agent. This one’s name is Jack Pepper, and he visits this camp rather often. I don’t like his looks a bit, and I try to be out of the way when he comes.
“I make a great many calls, for I find the women like to have me come, and besides, it keeps them up to the mark in their housekeeping. Often the first thing I see, long before I get to the house, is a cloud of dust coming out of the front door. Then I know that some one has spied me coming, and is putting the one room in company trim. By the time I get there, it has not only been swept, but the beds neatly made, with fresh white pillow-cases, the dishes washed, the cupboard put in order, and perhaps, if I don’t hurry, the youngest child has its face scrubbed and a clean dress slipped on over the old one.
“Give my love to all—especially darling Doris and all her family. I often think of Grandma Brown. You’ll think it funny, I suppose, but Grandmother here reminds me of her a good deal. Not her looks, of course, for she isn’t neat and nice a bit; her fingers are like claws and her hair like gray feathers, almost; but they both have a way of speaking right out and saying things that bite.
“I shake hands with you in my heart, as our people say.
“Stella.
“P. S. If you happen to see Doctor Ethan again, please give him my kind regards.”
CHAPTER XVII
“PRAY FOR MY PEOPLE WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN!”
Of course, Stella couldn’t put everything into a letter, and one of the things she didn’t mention was a regular proposal of marriage from the old chief, Standing Cloud. She called him “old,” but he was really a rather fine-looking man of something over fifty. He had “thrown away” one wife in obedience to the law of the white man, and had then lost the other soon afterward, and he had missed no detail of the appearance of the young school girl on that fateful evening when she had gone after Blue Earth to the dance house. For the minute that she had stood there, framed in the open window, the light of the fire had struck full upon her winsome face and tall, supple figure, bringing out every line and feature with almost startling distinctness.