Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/66

THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX his two arms to fold her close and got nothing more substantial than another whispery laugh.

"Where are yoh, sweetheart?" He peered into the shadow where she had been, and saw the place empty. He laughed, chagrined by her elusiveness, yet hungering for her the more.

"You not touch," she warned. "Till priest say marriage prayers, no man touch."

He called her a devil in Spanish, and she thought it a love-word and laughed and came nearer. He did not attempt to touch her, and so, reassured, she stood close so that he could see the pure, Indian profile of her face when she raised it to the sky in a mute invocation, it might be, of her gods.

"When yoh come?" he asked swiftly, his race betrayed in tone and accent. "I look and look—I no see yoh."

"I come," she stated with a quiet meaning. "I not like cow, for make plenty noise. I stand here, you smoke two times, I look."

"You mus' be moonbeam," he told her, reaching out again, only to lay hold upon nothing. "Come back, sweetheart. I be good."

"I not like you touch," she repeated. "I good 54