"Mitiahwe," he said gently.
She was singing to herself to an Indian air the words of a song Dingan
had taught her:
"Open the door: cold is the night, and my feet are heavy,
Heap up the fire, scatter upon it the cones and the scented leaves;
Spread the soft robe on the couch for the chief that returns,
Bring forth the cup of remembrance--"
It was like a low recitative, and it had a plaintive cadence, as of a
dove that mourned.
"Mitiahwe," he said in a louder voice, but with a break in it too; for it
all rushed upon him, all that she had been to him--all that had made the
great West glow with life, made the air sweeter, the grass greener, the
trees more companionable and human: who it was that had given the waste
places a voice. Yet--yet, there were his own people in the East, there
was another life waiting for him, there was the life of ambition and
wealth, and, and home--and children.
His eyes were misty as she turned to him with a little cry of surprise,
how much natural and how much assumed--for she had heard him enter--it
would have been hard to say. She was a woman, and therefore the daughter
of pretence even when most real. He caught her by both arms as she shyly
but eagerly came to him.
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