Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/75

 —cold and wet. Yes; for he was clammy now on one side but hot, parching hot on the other. And no wonder! Some good Samaritan had been drying him out—by a fire.

Experimentally he straightened and began, of his own strength, to turn the dry front of him away from the embers, the damp back toward them. The sensation was delightful but the effort exhausting. His half-opened eyes closed again; his cheek was pillowed on something soft—something soft and hairy—on some kind of skin or fur. Again the sensation was delightful. Weak, warm, relaxed, he dozed off. But presently his eyes were open and staring curiously, taking further account of his surroundings. He was in a sort of bungalow, long and narrow, but crudely carpeted with skins.

Why, no—it wasn't a bungalow; it was a lodge—an Indian lodge, for there was a squaw—a little squaw—a pretty little squaw. She sat cross-legged on a stool regarding him absorbedly from the distance of two or three yards; she wore moccasins, leggings and a cougar skin for a skirt, a sleeved vest of deer-skin with the hair removed, fringed and slashed, and there was bead-work upon it. There were strings of tiny pink shells alternating with other strings of tiny white ones about her neck; some barely encircling it, some looping low upon her breast. Two braids of jet-black hair fell one in front of each shoulder.

The squaw had very black eyes but in complexion she was very light—white with brunette trimmings, as it were—yet unmistakably a squaw. The look she gave him was of the wild. It had the gravity of centuries in it, though the girl seemed about sixteen.