Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/84

 Lahleet rose quickly and took a banjo-shaped instrument from the top of the piano. It yielded yeeping bird-like notes in a very limited combination of tones but the girl played them over and over with an absorption in which her expression changed gradually from a kind of barbaric prettiness to something that was almost beauty.

"I cannot think that you are an Indian," Henry interrupted, "except for the scenery"—and he indicated the strings of shells and the fringes and slashes on the deer-skin vest.

The girl's eyes smoldered for an instant as in stubborn rebellion at the fate which had made of her a mixed-blood; then brightened quickly. "My father was a white man," she boasted. "My mother's father was a white man, but her mother was the daughter of Chief Keemah; that makes me a You do the arithmetic!" she broke off impulsively.

But Henry was becoming too drowsy for problems in arithmetic. He fell asleep instead.