The Hidden Children

by Robert W. Chambers

"I knew it when I first laid eyes on her, Loskiel."

"By what sign?"

"The moccasins. She lay under a cow-shed asleep in her red cloak, her head on her arms. Beside her the kerchief tied around her bundle lay unknotted, revealing the moccasins that lay within. I saw, and knew. And for that reason have I been her friend."

"You told her this?"

"Why should I tell her?"

There was no answer to this. An Indian is an Indian.

I said after a moment:

"What mark is there on the moccasins that you knew them?"

"The wings, worked in white wampum. A mother makes a pair with wings each year for her Hidden One, so that they will bring her little child to her one day, swiftly and surely as the swallow that returns with spring."

"Has she told you of these moccasins—how every year a pair of them is left for her, no matter where she may be lodged?"