“We’d better go to bed,” cried Polly, rising. “We want to be up with the chickens to-morrow, and make the most of every day we’re here.”
“If you rise early, you will be in time for a dip with Peggie and me. We go in about five. Did you bring your suits?”
“Yes, they did, but if I hadn’t told them to do so, not one would have remembered,” Ruth said, soberly.
“Oh, listen a minute,” Peggie cautioned. “Sally is singing the chant of the new moon.”
In the hush that followed, they heard the old squaw’s low tremulous tones, over and over, singing the same strange minor notes, quavering and simple, that seemed to hold the spirit of the night and the spell of these far reaches of distant hills and mountain ranges, in their melody. Overhead, the new moon showed in the sky, silver and slender against the amber afterglow of the sunset. Out on a patch of ground between the ranch house and the cook-cabin stood the old Indian woman, lifting up her arms every now and then as she sang, or rather, grunted the chant.
“What does she mean?” whispered Isabel. “I can’t understand a word she says.”
“Neither does anybody else,” replied Jean. “Mother thinks it is part of some old invocation to the moon, or a prayer for fair weather. Sometimes, when she is in the humor, Sally will sit and tell us old tales that she used to hear when she was a child in the Shoshone camps. That was before the government compelled the tribe to give up their roaming life, and settle down on the reservation at Fort Washakie.”
“What a queer name, Miss Jean!”
“It is in honor of the great Chief Washakie, Polly. He was the best friend the whites had out here, and was always loyal.”
They did not disturb Sally Lost Moon, but called good-night to Mr. Murray and the boys, and went over to the lodge.