"But it was you, the chief said was brave!"
Mother laughed.
"I had to be, baby," she said. "Mother had no choice. There's only one way to deal with an Indian. I had lived among them all my life, and I knew what must be done."
"I think both of you were brave," I said, "you, the bravest!"
"Quite the contrary," laughed mother. "I shall have to confess that what I did happened so quickly I'd no time to think. I only realized the coal red iron was menacing the papoose when it drew back and whimpered. Father had all night to face what was coming to him, and it was not one to one, but one to forty, with as many more squaws, as good fighters as the braves, to back them. It was a terror but I never have been sorry we went through it together. I have rested so securely in your father ever since."
"And he is as safe in you," I insisted.
"As you will," said mother. "This world must have her women quite as much as her men. It is shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, business."
The clamour in the meadow arose above our voices and brought us back to the foxes.
"There goes another!" I said, the tears beginning to roll again.
"It is heathenish business," said mother. "I don't blame you! If people were not too shiftless to care for their stuff, the foxes wouldn't take their chickens and geese. They never get ours!"