“You are good, I can see that. You have lived among the palefaces, the outlaw told me?”
“Yes, my mother was a paleface squaw, my father a great Indian chief. He died, and my mother went back to her people, taking me with her. She died, and I work hard for officer’s family at fort far away. I hear them say: ‘She only half-breed Injun; watch her.’ I feel mad, I feel bad, and run away back to my people. But some treat me good, one young squaw pretty, just like you, and I love her. I love you for her. Yellow Bird be good to you.”
The tears came into the eyes of Lucille, and, stepping close up to the woman, she kissed her.
It was under the impulse of her loneliness, her sorrow, her helplessness, and the kind words spoken to her.
The squaw started as though she had been struck a blow, for it fairly frightened her, but she said quickly:
“Oh, yes, Yellow Bird be heap good to little paleface.”
Then she set about her work to clean up, just as she had done when living in the officer’s family. She got water from a spring near, and built a fire in the large hearth, so that the cabin soon no longer looked forlorn.
The outlaw had left the stage cushions there, the stores he had bought in Pioneer City and Lucille’s satchel, and the young captive was soon quite comfortable, and she began to feel that she had cause to congratulate herself, after all, that matters were as they were.
In Yellow Bird she believed she had found a friend. Yet Lucille was not one to gush, and she decided that there was a very narrow margin between deceit and sincerity in one’s appearance, so she wished to know whether the Indian woman was really true or false.