"Oachi," he asked softly, "why did you never sing?"
The girl looked at him in silence for a moment.
"We starve," she said. She swept her hand toward the door of the tepee. "We starve—die—there is no song."
He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to him, as he might have done with a little child.
"I wish you would sing, Oachi," he said.
For a moment the girl's dark eyes glowed up at him. Then she drew back softly, and seated herself before the fire, with her back turned toward him, close beside her father. A strange quiet filled the tepee. Over their heads the wailing storm seemed to die for a moment; and then something rose in its place, so low and gentle at first that it seemed like a whisper, but growing in sweetness and volume until Roscoe Cummins sat erect, his eyes flashing, his hands clenched, looking at Oachi. The storm rose, and with it the song—a song that reached down into his soul, stirring him now with its gladness, now with a half savage pain; but always with a sweetness that engulfed for him all other things, until he was listening only to the voice. And then silence came again within the tepee. Over the mountain the wind burst more fiercely. The chief sat motionless. In Oachi's hair the firelight glistened with a dull radiance. There was quiet, and yet Roscoe still heard the voice. He knew that he would always hear it, that it would never die.
Not until long afterward did he know that Oachi had sung to him the great love song of the Crees.
That night and the next day, and the terrible night and day that followed, Roscoe fought with himself. He won—when alone—and lost when Oachi was with him. In some ways she knew intuitively that he loved to see her with her splendid hair down, and she would sit at his feet and brush it, while he tried to hide his admiration and smother the passion which sprang up in his breast when she was near. He knew, in these moments, that it was too late to kill the thing that was born in him—the craving of his heart and his soul for this girl of the First People who had laid her life at his feet and who was removed from him by barriers which he could never pass. On the afternoon of his seventh day in camp an Indian hunter ran in from the forest nearly crazed with joy. He had ventured farther away than the others, and had found a moose-yard. He had killed two of the animals. The days of famine were over. Oachi brought the first news to Roscoe. Her face was radiant with joy, her eyes burned like stars, and in her excitement she stretched out her arms to him as she cried out the wonderful news. Roscoe took her two hands.
"Is it true, Oachi?" he asked. "They have surely killed meat?"
"Yes—yes—yes," she cried. "They have killed meat—much meat—"