CHAPTER II
She came out of the wood of glistening birch, and with the first firesof the sun blazoning her unbound hair raced lightly across thedew-dripping meadow. The earth was fat with excessive moisture andsoft to her feet, while the dank vegetation slapped against her kneesand cast off flashing sprays of liquid diamonds. The flush of themorning was in her cheek, and its fire in her eyes, and she was aglowwith youth and love. For she had nursed at the breast of nature,--inforfeit of a mother,--and she loved the old trees and the creepinggreen things with a passionate love; and the dim murmur of growing lifewas a gladness to her ears, and the damp earth-smells were sweet to hernostrils.
Where the upper-reach of the meadow vanished in a dark and narrowforest aisle, amid clean-stemmed dandelions and color-burstingbuttercups, she came upon a bunch of great Alaskan violets. Throwingherself at full length, she buried her face in the fragrant coolness,and with her hands drew the purple heads in circling splendor about herown. And she was not ashamed. She had wandered away amid thecomplexities and smirch and withering heats of the great world, and shehad returned, simple, and clean, and wholesome. And she was glad ofit, as she lay there, slipping back to the old days, when the universebegan and ended at the sky-line, and when she journeyed over the Passto behold the Abyss.
It was a primitive life, that of her childhood, with few conventions,but such as there were, stern ones. And they might be epitomized, asshe had read somewhere in her later years, as "the faith of food andblanket." This faith had her father kept, she thought, rememberingthat his name sounded well on the lips of men. And this was the faithshe had learned,--the faith she had carried with her across the Abyssand into the world, where men had wandered away from the old truths andmade themselves selfish dogmas and casuistries of the subtlest kinds;the faith she had brought back with her, still fresh, and young, andjoyous. And it was all so simple, she had contended; why should nottheir faith be as her faith--_the faith of food and blanket_? Thefaith of trail and hunting camp? The faith with which strong clean menfaced the quick danger and sudden death by field and flood? Why not?The faith of Jacob Welse? Of Matt McCarthy? Of the Indian boys shehad played with? Of the Indian girls she had led to Amazonian war? Ofthe very wolf-dogs straining in the harnesses and running with heracross the snow? It was healthy, it was real, it was good, shethought, and she was glad.
The rich notes of a robin saluted her from the birch wood, and openedher ears to the day. A partridge boomed afar in the forest, and atree-squirrel launched unerringly into space above her head, and wenton, from limb to limb and tree to tree, scolding graciously the while.From the hidden river rose the shouts of the toiling adventurers,already parted from sleep and fighting their way towards the Pole.
Frona arose, shook back her hair, and took instinctively the old pathbetween the trees to the camp of Chief George and the Dyea tribesmen.She came upon a boy, breech-clouted and bare, like a copper god. Hewas gathering wood, and looked at her keenly over his bronze shoulder.She bade him good-morning, blithely, in the Dyea tongue; but he shookhis head, and laughed insultingly, and paused in his work to hurlshameful words after her. She did not understand, for this was not theold way, and when she passed a great and glowering Sitkan buck she kepther tongue between her teeth. At the fringe of the forest, the campconfronted her. And she was startled. It was not the old camp of ascore or more of lodges clustering and huddling together in the open asthough for company, but a mighty camp. It began at the very forest,and flowed in and out among the scattered tree-clumps on the flat, andspilled over and down to the river bank where the long canoes werelined up ten and twelve deep. It was a gathering of the tribes, likeunto none in all the past, and a thousand miles of coast made up thetally. They were all strange Indians, with wives and chattels anddogs. She rubbed shoulders with Juneau and Wrangel men, and wasjostled by wild-eyed Sticks from over the Passes, fierce Chilcats, andQueen Charlotte Islanders. And the looks they cast upon her were blackand frowning, save--and far worse--where the merrier souls leeredpatronizingly into her face and chuckled unmentionable things.
She was not frightened by this insolence, but angered; for it hurt her,and embittered the pleasurable home-coming. Yet she quickly graspedthe significance of it: the old patriarchal status of her father's timehad passed away, and civilization, in a scorching blast, had swept downupon this people in a day. Glancing under the raised flaps of a tent,she saw haggard-faced bucks squatting in a circle on the floor. By thedoor a heap of broken bottles advertised the vigils of the night. Awhite man, low of visage and shrewd, was dealing cards about, and goldand silver coins leaped into heaping bets upon the blanket board. Afew steps farther on she heard the cluttering whirl of a wheel offortune, and saw the Indians, men and women, chancing eagerly theirsweat-earned wages for the gaudy prizes of the game. And from tepeeand lodge rose the cracked and crazy strains of cheap music-boxes.
An old squaw, peeling a willow pole in the sunshine of an open doorway,raised her head and uttered a shrill cry.
"Hee-Hee! Tenas Hee-Hee!" she muttered as well and as excitedly as hertoothless gums would permit.
Frona thrilled at the cry. Tenas Hee-Hee! Little Laughter! Her nameof the long gone Indian past! She turned and went over to the oldwoman.
"And hast thou so soon forgotten, Tenas Hee-Hee?" she mumbled. "Andthine eyes so young and sharp! Not so soon does Neepoosa forget."
"It is thou, Neepoosa?" Frona cried, her tongue halting from the disuseof years.
"Ay, it is Neepoosa," the old woman replied, drawing her inside thetent, and despatching a boy, hot-footed, on some errand. They sat downtogether on the floor, and she patted Frona's hand lovingly, peering,meanwhile, blear-eyed and misty, into her face. "Ay, it is Neepoosa,grown old quickly after the manner of our women. Neepoosa, who dandledthee in her arms when thou wast a child. Neepoosa, who gave thee thyname, Tenas Hee-Hee. Who fought for thee with Death when thou wastailing; and gathered growing things from the woods and grasses of theearth and made of them tea, and gave thee to drink. But I mark littlechange, for I knew thee at once. It was thy very shadow on the groundthat made me lift my head. A little change, mayhap. Tall thou art,and like a slender willow in thy grace, and the sun has kissed thycheeks more lightly of the years; but there is the old hair, flyingwild and of the color of the brown seaweed floating on the tide, andthe mouth, quick to laugh and loth to cry. And the eyes are as clearand true as in the days when Neepoosa chid thee for wrong-doing, andthou wouldst not put false words upon thy tongue. Ai! Ai! Not asthou art the other women who come now into the land!"
"And why is a white woman without honor among you?" Frona demanded."Your men say evil things to me in the camp, and as I came through thewoods, even the boys. Not in the old days, when I played with them,was this shame so."
"Ai! Ai!" Neepoosa made answer. "It is so. But do not blame them.Pour not thine anger upon their heads. For it is true it is the faultof thy women who come into the land these days. They can point to noman and say, 'That is my man.' And it is not good that women should hethus. And they look upon all men, bold-eyed and shameless, and theirtongues are unclean, and their hearts bad. Wherefore are thy womenwithout honor among us. As for the boys, they are but boys. And themen; how should they know?"
The tent-flaps were poked aside and an old man came in. He grunted toFrona and sat down. Only a certain eager alertness showed the delighthe took in her presence.
"So Tenas Hee-Hee has come back in these bad days," he vouchsafed in ashrill, quavering voice.
"And why bad days, Muskim?" Frona asked. "Do not the women wearbrighter colors? Are not the bellies fuller with flour and bacon andwhite man's grub? Do not the young men contrive great wealth what oftheir pack-straps and paddles? And art thou not remembered with theancient offerings of meat and fish and blanket? Why bad days, Muskim?"
"True," he replied in his fine, priestly way, a reminiscent flash ofthe old fire lighting his eyes. "It is very true. Th
e women wearbrighter colors. But they have found favor, in the eyes of thy whitemen, and they look no more upon the young men of their own blood.Wherefore the tribe does not increase, nor do the little childrenlonger clutter the way of our feet. It is so. The bellies are fullerwith the white man's grub; but also are they fuller with the whiteman's bad whiskey. Nor could it be otherwise that the young mencontrive great wealth; but they sit by night over the cards, and itpasses from them, and they speak harsh words one to another, and inanger blows are struck, and there is bad blood between them. As forold Muskim, there are few offerings of meat and fish and blanket. Forthe young women have turned aside from the old paths, nor do the youngmen longer honor the old totems and the old gods. So these are baddays, Tenas Hee-Hee, and they behold old Muskim go down in sorrow tothe grave."
"Ai! Ai! It is so!" wailed Neepoosa.
"Because of the madness of thy people have my people become mad,"Muskim continued. "They come over the salt sea like the waves of thesea, thy people, and they go--ah! who knoweth where?"
"Ai! Who knoweth where?" Neepoosa lamented, rocking slowly back andforth.
"Ever they go towards the frost and cold; and ever do they come, morepeople, wave upon wave!"
"Ai! Ai! Into the frost and cold! It is a long way, and dark andcold!" She shivered, then laid a sudden hand on Frona's arm. "Andthou goest?"
Frona nodded.
"And Tenas Hee-Hee goest! Ai! Ai! Ai!"
The tent-flap lifted, and Matt McCarthy peered in. "It's yerself,Frona, is it? With breakfast waitin' this half-hour on ye, an' oldAndy fumin' an' frettin' like the old woman he is. Good-mornin' to ye,Neepoosa," he addressed Frona's companions, "an' to ye, Muskim, though,belike ye've little mimory iv me face."
The old couple grunted salutation and remained stolidly silent.
"But hurry with ye, girl," turning back to Frona. "Me steamer startsby mid-day, an' it's little I'll see iv ye at the best. An' likewisethere's Andy an' the breakfast pipin' hot, both iv them."