As he spoke he came to the other side of the fireplace and seated himself on the floor and the act had for the girl the odd effect of a deliberate renunciation of the civilization which she, in her chair, seemed for the moment to personify. It was as if in answering her question he had cast off the habit of his white man’s schooling; had thrown aside mask and cloak and placed before her his true self. As he sat there, in the picturesque garb of his savage fathers, with the ruddy light of the fire playing on his bronze, impassive countenance and glinting in the somber depths of his steady eyes, the young white woman looking down upon him could detect no trace of the white man’s training.
“And yet,” she said, “this cabin—this room—does not look like any Indian’s home that I ever saw.”
He answered with the native imagery of a red man:
“The cougar that has been taught to jump through a hoop at the crack of his trainer’s whip is still a cougar. The eagle in a white man’s cage never acquires the spirit of a dove.”
“But I should think that with your education you would live among your people and teach them.”
Gazing steadfastly into the fire he answered grimly:
“And what would you have me teach my people?”
“Why, teach them what you have learned—teach them how to live.”
The Indian looked at her, and the girl saw something in his countenance that made her feel, all at once, very weak and helpless. She was embarrassed as if caught in some petty meanness. In her confusion she began to stammer an apology but the red man raised his hand.
“You, a white woman, shall hear an Indian. I, Natachee, will speak.