Page:Bridge of the Gods (Balch).djvu/272



She started, and her face flushed painfully; then without looking at him she replied,

"Wallulah loves her home, and leaving it saddens her."

A sparkle of vindictive delight came into his eyes.

"Do the women of the Willamette feel sad when they go to live with their husbands? It is not so with the Cayuse women. They are glad; they care for the one they belong to. They love to sit in the sun at the door of the wigwam and say to the other women, My man is brave; he leads the war party; he has many scalps at his belt. Who is brave like my man? "

Wallulah shuddered. He saw it, and the sparkle of malice in his eyes flashed into sudden anger.

"Does the young squaw tremble at these things? Then she must get used to them. She must learn to bring wood and water for Snoqualmie s lodge, too. She must learn to wait on him as an Indian s wife ought. The old wrinkled squaws, who are good for nothing but to be beasts of burden, shall teach her."

There came before her a picture of the ancient withered hags, the burden-bearers, the human vampires of the Indian camps, the vile in word and deed, the first to cry for the blood of captives, the most eager to give taunts and blows to the helpless; were they to be her associates, her teachers? Involuntarily she lifted her hand, as if to push from her a future so dreadful.

"Wallulah will bring the wood and the water. Wallulah will work. The old women need not teach her."

"That is well. But one thing more y