Told in the Hills: A Novel

by Marah Ellis Ryan

"Say, Miss Rachel," broke in Jim, "was Kalitan a Kootenai Injun?"

"No, though he lived with them often. He was of the Gros Ventres, a race that belongs to the plains rather than the hills."

"You are already pretty well posted about the different tribes," observed Stuart.

"Yes, the Lawd knows—humph!" grunted Aunty Luce, evidently thinking the knowledge not a thing to be proud of.

"Oh, yes," smiled Tillie, "Rachel takes easily to everything in these hills. You should hear her talking Chinook to a blanket brave, or exchanging compliments with her special friend, the Arrow."

"The Arrow? That is a much more suggestive title than the Wahoosh, Kah-kwa, Sipah, and some other equally meaningless names I jotted down as I heard them up there."

"They are only meaningless to strangers," answered the girl. "They all have their own significance."

"Why, this same Arrow is called Kalitan," broke in Jim; "an' what'd you make out of that? Both names mean just the same thing. He was called that even when he was a little fellow, he said, 'cause he could run like a streak. Why, he used to make the trip down to the settlement an' be back here with the mail afore supper, makin' his forty miles afoot after breakfast; how's that for movin' over rough country?"

The swiftness did not seem to make the desired impression, his listener catching, instead, at the fact of their having had an Indian mail-carrier.

"And where is your Indian messenger of late?" he asked. "He has not visited you since my arrival, has he?"