Keeko pointed at the cross at the head of the grave.
"He set that up? Yes?"
"Him mak' him totem."
Keeko stood staring at the cross for some moments. Then she moved over to it and grasped it. It stirred in its setting. Then she left it, and returned to Lu-cana.
"He dared to set that up," she cried bitterly. "'In loving memory.'" She read the words before the name of her mother. "He dared to set up—that?"
Her eyes shone with a fierce light as she turned and looked into the squaw's face.
"Yes. Him set 'em up."
Lu-cana failed to understand that which lay at the back of Keeko's eyes. She could not read the words on the totem. She did not know their meaning when she heard them. All she knew was that the white man had done this thing.
Keeko pointed at it.
"Guess I'll make a new—totem," she said, in a tone that was only cold and hard. "And we'll set it up. You and me, Lu-cana. And that one—that one," she repeated with bitter emphasis, "we'll break it, we'll smash it, and we'll burn it in the cook stove till there's nothing left."