“How long?” she asked, with eyes fixed on his. “If it is more than a week, I will go too.”
“It is longer than a month,” he said.
“Then I will go.”
“I am going to see my people,” he faltered.
“By the Ste. Anne?”
He nodded. “It is the last chance this year; but I will come back—in the spring.”
As he said it he saw her shrink, and his heart smote him. Four years such as few men ever spent, and all the luck had been with him, and the West had got into his bones! The quiet, starry nights, the wonderful days, the hunt, the long journeys, the life free of care, and the warm lodge; and, here, the great couch—ah, the cheek pressed to his, the lips that whispered at his ear, the smooth arm round his neck. It all rushed upon him now. His people! His people in the East, who had thwarted his youth, vexed and cramped him, saw only evil in his widening desires, and threw him over when he came out West—the scallywag, they called him, who had never wronged a man—or a woman? Never—wronged—a—woman? The question sprang to his lips now. Suddenly he saw it all in a new light. White or brown or red, this heart and soul and body before him were all his, sacred to him; he was in very truth her “chief.”
Untutored as she was, she read him, felt what was going on in him. She saw the tears spring to his eyes. Then, coming close to him, she said, softly, slowly: “I must go with you if you go, because you must be with me when—Oh, hai-yai, my chief, shall we go from here? Here in this lodge wilt thou be with thine own people—thine own, thou and I—and thine to come.” The great passion in her heart made the lie seem very truth.
With a cry he got to his feet, and stood staring at her for a moment, scarcely comprehending; then suddenly he clasped her in his arms.
“Mitiahwe—Mitiahwe, oh, my little girl!” he cried. “You and me—and our own—our own people!” Kissing her, he drew her down beside him on the couch. “Tell me again—is it so at last?” he said, and she whispered in his ear once more.