All four red girls sat scared and silent.
Loseis jumped up as if she had strong springs in her legs. “Can’t you say something, any of you? Are you all struck dumb? You can chatter fast enough among yourselves when I am not there!” She amplified her remarks in the Slavi tongue.
They were struck dumb indeed, then. They looked at each other helplessly, each one mutely begging her neighbor to speak.
“Oh, leave me! leave me! you foolish pudding faces!” cried Loseis, waving her hands. “Or I shall have to beat you!”
They faded into the kitchen with alacrity. Only Mary-Lou looked back.
“Mary-Lou, you stay here,” commanded Loseis. “I’ve got to have somebody to talk to!”
Mary-Lou leaned shyly against the door frame; pleased at being called back, yet terrified, too. Loseis paced up and down the room like a slim black panther, her eyes shooting greenish sparks.
It was a broad, low room with but two tiny windows, glass being such a difficult article to bring in seven hundred miles by pack train. There was a capacious fireplace, cunningly built out of rounded stones from the creek bed. The log walls had been plastered with clay, hardened now almost to the consistency of brick; and overhead was spread a canvas ceiling cloth to keep in the warmth. Walls and ceiling had been washed with a warm terra cotta color, which made a rich background for the beautiful furs. Over the carved bedstead in the corner was flung a robe made of hundreds of raccoons’ tails, the black stripes worked into an elaborate geometrical design. There were other robes made of otters’ skins, of lynx paws, of silver foxes. On the walls hung many beautiful examples of Indian handicraft.
Glancing at the drooping head of the red girl, Loseis cried: “Mary-Lou, you’ve got as much spirit as a lump of pemmican! When you sit by the fire I wonder that you do not melt and run down in grease!”
Mary-Lou’s head went lower still, and her eyes filled.