The tepees of the Indian village were strung along its banks, and the stream itself was filled with canoes. On a grassy mound to the right stood a little log shack which had a curiously impertinent look there in the midst of Nature untouched. On the other hand the tepees sprang from the ground as naturally as trees.
Their coming naturally had the effect of a thunderclap on the village. They had scarcely shown themselves from among the trees when their presence was discovered. A chorus of sharp cries was raised, and there was much aimless running about like ants when the hill is disturbed. The cries did not suggest a welcome, but excitement purely. Men, women, and children gathered in a dense little crowd beside the trail where they must pass. None wished to put themselves forward. Those who lived on the other side of the little stream paddled frantically across to be in time for a close view.
As they approached, absolute silence fell on the Indians, the silence of breathless excitement. The red-coat they had heard of, and in a general way they knew what he signified; but a white woman to them was as fabulous a creature as a mermaid or a hamadryad. Their eyes were saved for Clare. They fixed on her as hard, bright, and unwinking as jet buttons. They conveyed nothing but an animal curiosity. Clare nodded and smiled to them in her own way, but no muscle of any face relaxed.
“Their manners will bear improving,” muttered Stonor.
“Oh, give them a chance,” said Clare. “We’ve dropped on them out of a clear sky.”
Some of the tepees were still made of tanned skins decorated with rude pictures; they saw bows and arrows and bark-canoes, things which have almost passed from America. The dress of the inhabitants was less picturesque; some of the older men still wore their picturesque blanket capotes, but the younger were clad in machine-made shirts and pants from the store, and the women in cotton dresses. They were a pure race, and as such presented for the most part fine, characteristic faces; but in body they were undersized and weedy, showing that their stock was running out.
Stonor led the way across the flat and up a grassy rise to the little shack that has been mentioned. It had been built for the Company clerk who had formerly traded with the Kakisas, and Stonor designed it to accommodate Clare for the night. They dismounted at the door. The Indians followed them to within a distance of ten paces, where they squatted on their heels or stood still, staring immovably. Stonor resented their curiosity. Good manners are much the same the world over, and a self-respecting people would not have acted so, he told himself. None offered to stir hand or foot to assist them to unpack.
Stonor somewhat haughtily desired the head man to show himself. When one stepped forward, he received him sitting in magisterial state on a box at the door. Personally the most modest of men, he felt for the moment that Authority had to be upheld in him. So the Indian was required to stand.
His name was Ahchoogah (as near as a white man could get it) and he was about forty years old. Though small and slight like all the Kakisas, he had a comely face that somehow suggested race. He was better dressed than the majority, in expensive “moleskin” trousers from the store, a clean blue gingham shirt, a gaudy red sash, and an antique gold-embroidered waistcoat that had originated Heaven knows where. On his feet were fine white moccasins lavishly embroidered in coloured silks.
“How,” he said, the one universal English word. He added a more elaborate greeting in his own tongue.