But Nistina snatched the precious package and ran into her lodge, to be alone with her joy.
It was a marvelous thing. There was the letter—a blue one—with her name spelled on it in big letters, Nistina, but she opened the package first. It contained a shining pouch, and in the pouch was a necklace of wondrous beads such as she had never seen, and a picture of her lover in white man’s dress. How strange he looked with his hair cut short! She hardly knew him.
Her heart beat strong and loud as she opened the letter, and read the first words, “Nistina, I am loving you.” After that she was confused, for Hawk could not write as well as she, and she read with great trouble, but the end she understood—“I am coming home.”
She rose and walked to her father’s lodge, where Macosa sat. She entered proudly, the letter in her hand. Her head was lifted, her eyes shone with pride.
“My letter is from Hawk,” she said, quietly. “He is coming home.”
And at this message Macosa and Vetcora covered their mouths in sign of inexpressible astonishment.
Sunmaker smoked on with placid face till he began to understand it all; then he said: “My daughter, you warm my heart. Sit beside me and tell me of this wonderful thing.”
Then she spoke, and her story was to him a sweet relief from care. “It is good,” he said. “Surely the white people are wonder-working beings.”
THE IRON KHIVA