The curious thing about this race of beings is, that, whether in high or low station, they are never ashamed of themselves—or of their position as drones in the world’s hive. They seem rather to apologise for their degradation as a thing inevitable, for which they are not accountable—and sometimes, in the case of the rich, as a thing justifiable.
“I’m glad I did not go to the plains this fall,” said La Certe, stirring the logs on the fire with his toe and emitting a prolonged sigh of mingled smoke and contentment, while a blast from the bleak nor’-west shook every blackened rafter in his little hut.
“Heel hee!” responded his wife, whose Indian name—translated—was Slowfoot, and might have been Slowtongue with equal propriety, for she was quite an adept at the art of silence. She frequently caused a giggle to do duty for speech. This suited her husband admirably, for he was fond of talking—could tell a good story, sing a good song, and express his feelings in a good hearty laugh.
“Yes, it will be hard for the poor boys who have gone to the plains, the weather is so awful, to say nothing of the women.”
“Ho,” replied Slowfoot—though what she meant to express by this no mortal knows—nor, perhaps, cares. It meant nothing bad, however, for she smiled seraphically and sent forth a stream of smoke, which, mingling with that just emitted by her husband, rose in a curling harmony to the roof.
Slowfoot was not a bad-looking woman as North American Indians go. She was brown unquestionably, and dirty without doubt, but she had a pleasant expression, suggestive of general good-will, and in the budding period of life must have been even pretty. She was evidently older than her husband, who might, perhaps, have been a little over thirty.
“I should not wonder,” continued La Certe, “if the buffalo was drove away, and the people starved this year. But the buffalo, perhaps, will return in time to save them.”
“Hm!” responded the wife, helping herself to some very strong tea, which she poured out of a tin kettle into a tin mug and sweetened with maple sugar.
“Do you know if Cloudbrow went with them?” asked the half-breed, pushing forward his mug for a supply of the cheering beverage.
“No, he stopped in his house,” replied the woman, rousing herself for a moment to the conversational point, but relapsing immediately.