Told in the Hills: A Novel

by Marah Ellis Ryan

"Well, I canna say; Andrews, a new man here, goes sometimes, but it's no rare thing for him to come home carrying more weight in whisky than in the letters, an' Hardy got a bit tired o' that."

"But haven't you a regular mail-carrier for this part of the country?" persisted Stuart.

MacDougall laughed shortly at the idea. "Who'd be paying the post?" he asked, "with but the Hardys an' myself, ye might say, barring the Kootenais; an' I have na heard that they know the use of a postage stamp."

"But someone of their tribe does come to the Centre for mail," continued Stuart in half argument—"an Indian youth; have you never seen him?"

"From the Kootenais? Well, I have not, then. It may be, of late, there are white men among them, but canna say; I see little o' any o' them this long time."

"And know no other white people in this region?"

"No, lad, not for a long time," said the old man, with a half sigh.

The listener rose to his feet. "I think," he said, as if a prospect of new interest had suddenly been awakened in his mind—"I think I should like to make a trip up into the country of the Kootenais. It is not very far, I believe, and would be a new experience. Yes, if I could get a guide, I would go."

"Well," said MacDougall drily, "seeing I've lived next door to the Kootenais for some time, I might be able to take ye a trip that way myself."

Rachel, writing inside the window, heard the conversation, and smiled to herself.