“Now I don’t know how it rightly come about, but somewheres around that tepee a wolf got busy. A timber wolf, most as big as—as—the Mission house. An’ he was savage. Gee, but he was real savage! Guess he was one o’ them fellers always ready to scare squaws an’ papooses an’ things. Ther’s lots o’ that sort around.”
Wanaha, quite unobserved by Seth, had come round the corner of the building, and stood watching the earnest face of the man who was so deliberately propounding his somewhat garbled version of Little Red Riding Hood. While she listened to his words she smiled pensively.
“Yes, they git themselves up fancy an’ come sneakin’ around, an’ they’re jest that fierce there ain’t no chance for you. Say, them things would eat you right up, same as you’ve eaten that taffy. Wal, this young squaw was goin’ off on her broncho when this timber wolf comes up smilin’, an’ he says, ’Good-day.’ An’ he shakes hands with her same as grown folks do. All them timber wolves are like that, ’cause they think you won’t see they’re going to eat you then. You see he was hungry. He’d been out on the war-path—which is real bad—an’ he’d been fightin’, and the folks had beaten him off, and he couldn’t get food, ’cause he’d left the Reservation 102 where there’s always plenty to eat an’ drink, and there was none anywhere else.
“Wal, he sizes up that squaw, and sees her blanket’s good an’ thick, and her moccasins is made of moose hide, and her beads is pretty, and he thinks she’ll make a good meal, but he thinks, thinks he, he’ll eat the squaw’s sick gran’ma first. So he says ’Good-bye,’ an’ waits till she’s well away on the trail, and then hurries back to the tepee an’ eats up the old squaw. Say wolves is ter’ble—’specially timber wolves.
“Now, when that squaw gits home——” Seth paused and doled out more taffy. The children were wonderfully intent on the story, but the sweets helped their attention. For there was much of what he said that was hard on their understandings. The drama of the story was plain enough, but the moral appealed to them less.
“When that squaw gits home she lifts the flap of the tepee, and she sees what she thinks is her gran’ma lying covered up on the skins on the ground. The fire is still burnin’, and everything is jest as she left it. She feels good an’ chirpy, and sits right down by her gran’ma’s side. And then she sees what she thinks looks kind o’ queer. Says she, ‘Gee, gran’ma, what a pesky long nose you’ve got!’ You see that wolf had come along an’ eaten her gran’ma, and fixed himself up in her clothes an’ things, and was lying right there ready to eat her, too, when she come along. So master timber wolf, 103 he says, ‘That’s so I ken smell out things when I’m hunting.’ Then that squaw, bein’ curious-like, which is the way with wimminfolk, says, ‘Shucks, gran’ma, but your tongue’s that long you ain’t room for it in your mouth.’ That wolf gits riled then. Says he, ‘That’s so I ken taste the good things I eat.’ Guess the squaw was plumb scared at that. She’d never heard her gran’ma say things like that. But she goes on, says she, ‘Your teeth’s fine an’ long an’ white, maybe you’ve cleaned ’em some.’ Then says the wolf, ‘That’s so I ken eat folks like you right up.’ With that he springs out of the blankets an’ pounces sheer on that poor little squaw and swallows her up at one gulp, same as you ken swaller this taffy.”
Seth suddenly sprang from his seat, held the bag of candy out at arm’s length, and finally dropped it on the ground in the midst of the children. There was a rush; a chorus of childish glee, and the whole twelve fell into a struggling heap upon the ground, wildly fighting for the feast.
With a gentle smile Seth looked on at the fierce scramble. To judge from his manner it would have been hard to assert which was the happier, the children or their teacher. Though Seth found them a tax on his imaginative powers, and though he was a man unused to many words, he loved these Sunday afternoons with his young charges.
His thoughtful contemplation was broken by Wanaha. Her moccasins gave out no sound as she stepped up to him from behind and touched him on 104 the shoulder. Her grave smile had passed; and when he turned he found himself looking into a pair of steady, serious, inscrutable eyes. No white woman can hide her thoughts behind such an impenetrable mask as the squaw. Surely the Indian face might well have served as a model for the Sphinx.
“The white teacher makes much happy,” she said in her labored English.