Page:From the West to the West.djvu/271



"You ought to be very proud of your wife, Joe."

"I am beginning to be. Yet you never can tell what the Indian nature will attempt. She seems to be all right when she lives with white people, but she'd lapse at once into barbarism again if she got a chance. They all do it. It is in the blood."

"She does ri't seems to want that sort of a chance, Joe."

"An Indian is like a wild coyote, John."

"But you have caught a tame one, Joe. She is above the average, even of white women. Give her the chance she craves. Stand by her like a gentleman. She is as thoroughly civilized as any of us."

"Did you see her at the trading-post last summer?"

"No; but why do you ask?"

"Because you would have beheld her in her native element. You may capture and tame a coyote, but when you turn him loose among his natural environments, you can't distinguish him in a short time from the wildest wolf of the pack."

"That being the case, there is strong need for keeping your wife in her adopted home, among your own people."

John was thawing toward his brother at a rapid rate; and Joseph, the erring but encouraged and repenting brother, felt a pang of remorse as he arose to welcome his wife and children upon their return from their drive, resolving in his heart that he would never again allow himself to regret the vows he had taken upon himself in his early manhood.

The paper was awaiting the Captain at his table the next morning, with the announcement that the sailing of the ocean steamer was to be delayed for a couple of days on account of an accident to her propeller.

"Then we'll have time for a spin out to the Ranch of the Whispering Firs, eh, Joe?" he asked, as his brother, accompanied by Wahnetta, who was resplendent in a crimson cashmere robe, over which her black