A few heavings of the breast and the hands fell by her side. Napiake, the beautiful Blackfoot woman, was at rest.
In a large and busy manufacturing town in the west of England, a merchant sat in his office reading his letters. At the door stood a coach with a pair of handsome horses; seated in it a lady with a babe upon her knee.
"Tell your master that I am waiting," said she to the footman, who promptly obeyed the command.
"I will be there in a few minutes," was the reply. The merchant seldom went for a drive, his extensive business usually requiring his whole attention; but he had made up his mind to spend this afternoon with his wife and child. The letter-carrier had just delivered his mail, and he was hastening to give directions to the letter clerks to answer them before leaving.
Among the others was a paper from the Canadian North-West, in which a marked paragraph caught his eye:
"There died last Friday, on the Blood Reserve, Napiake, an Indian squaw. Some of the pioneers of the district may remember her as a beautiful woman when she was young, who lived for a time in the village in the early days."
Turning suddenly pale, he laid the paper aside and left the office. As he sat in the coach his wife pointed to several objects of interest which they passed, chatting freely about them, but he paid little attention. It was as though he heard her not. All her efforts to drive away his morose silence were in vain. Far away at the foot of the Rocky Mountains the husband saw a woman dying in an Indian lodge, a woman who loved him to the last, but whom he had deserted and forgotten. Forgotten? No! He could never forget her.
But in that busy English town he is a merchant prince, holding an honored position in society. He is a member of several societies, and is often speaking on behalf of the enfranchisement of women and popular education.
Sometimes an old man leading a boy by the hand may be seen standing beside a mound on the wide prairie of the West, but there is no other that ever visits that lonely grave.
Little Charlie Brown finds a home among the Indians, depending on them for food and clothing, and sometimes an old-timer takes compassion upon the boy and gives him a morsel of food or some clothing. He endures the poverty of an Indian lodge, while over the sea his father enjoys the comforts of an English mansion.