Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/78

 of it was soft, soft as velvet. He lifted it to where his eye could contemplate its form. It was a trifle thick and square for Caucasian standards of beauty; but none the less it was—charming.

"Who are you?" he asked abruptly, as sensing some mystery in her personality.

"I am a little Siwash," the girl answered with delicious gravity. Henry, still toying with the fingers of that hand, made a startling discovery—first with the sense of touch and then by a quick glance. He held the tips of the fingers toward her.

"Manicured," he accused.

But the Indian maid was undismayed. "I am a manicured Siwash," she smiled complacently.

Henry regarded her doubtfully a long time; and then, as if the enigma of her personality was too complex for weakened nerves, his eyes wandered past the girl, past the stool on which she had been sitting, past the bunk of skins which was the only detail of the furnishings his eyes had yet made out—passed on and then halted, staring wide. The windows were few and small, the interior was rather shadowy, but he made out—a piano! And a phonograph! Window curtains, too, of cretonne.

Lifting his astonished self upon an elbow, Henry took in the whole ensemble—a strange mixture of the crudities of an Indian lodge with the refinements of civilization—a conglomeration that heightened instead of allayed curiosity. In the shock of it Harrington tried to sit up but a whirl of pain shrieked through the back of his head.

"Oh, my . . . oh, my heavens!" he groaned and an involuntary hand went up. It came in contact with a mountain of bandages and surgical dressings.