Seth promptly answered her in her own tongue.
“The papooses of the Indian make the white man happy,” he said simply.
There was a long pause. Suddenly one dusky urchin rose with a whoop of delight, bearing aloft the torn paper with several lumps of sweet stuff, discolored with dirt, sticking to it. With one accord the little mob broke. The triumphant child fled away to the bluff pursued by the rest of her howling companions. The man and the squaw were left alone.
“The white man tells a story of a wolf and a squaw,” Wanaha said, returning to her own language. The children were still shrieking in the distance.
Seth nodded assent. He had nothing to add to her statement.
“And the wolf eats the squaw,” the woman went on, quite seriously. It sounded strange, her literal manner of discussing this children’s story.
A look of interest came into the man’s thoughtful eyes. But he turned away, not wishing to display 105 any curiosity. He understood the Indian nature as few men do.
“There was no one by to warn the squaw?” she went on in a tone of simple inquiry. “No brave to help her?”
“No one to help,” answered the man.
There was another pause. The children still inside the Mission house were helping to chant the Doxology, and the woman appeared to listen to it with interest. When it was finished she went on——