Page:From the West to the West.djvu/197



XXVI

LE-LE, THE INDIAN GIRL

"TW T IKA klosh cloochman!" clucked the Indian girl. Jean looked at her inquiringly.

"Nika wake cumtux Siwah wa-wa? "asked the dusky maiden, offering her hand.

"She says she is a good Indian girl, and asks if you understand her," said Siwash, who was leisurely putting the room to rights. "She's my little sister; heap good. Ugh! Nika speak jargon?"

"No, Siwash."

But the maiden's manner, though coy, was assuring, and Jean clasped her hand eagerly. She was a graceful, nimble, and pretty creature; and Jean thought with a sigh of regret of the ugly transformation awaiting her under the cares and burdens of maturity and maternity, when, no longer like "the wild gazelle, with its nimble feet," she would resemble other elderly Indian women.

"What is your name, little girl?" she asked, as the maiden dropped gracefully upon the hearth at her feet.

"Nika wake cumtux Boston wa-wa."

"She says she doesn't understand you," grunted Siwash.

"Ah-to-ke-nika a-it sewar."

"She says she has a good heart."

"Why doesn't she speak her name?"

The girl crouched low on the hearth and spread her shapely brown fingers before the dying embers.

"Nika Le-Le. Nika caid."

"She says her name is Le-Le, and she is a slave."

"Your sister? and a slave?"

"I, too, was a slave," said Siwash, "but I boug