Adventure stories; Indians of North America -- Fiction; Short stories, American
But Li Wan's roving eyes had called her attention from him. A few
yards below and partly screened by a clump of young spruce, the tiered
logs of a cabin rose to meet its overhanging roof of dirt. A thrill
ran through her, and all her dream-phantoms roused up and stirred
about uneasily.
"Canim," she whispered in an agony of apprehension. "Canim, what is
that?"
"The white man's teepee, in which he eats and sleeps."
She eyed it wistfully, grasping its virtues at a glance and thrilling
again at the unaccountable sensations it aroused. "It must be very
warm in time of frost," she said aloud, though she felt that she must
make strange sounds with her lips.
She felt impelled to utter them, but did not, and the next instant
Canim said, "It is called a _cabin_."
Her heart gave a great leap. The sounds! the very sounds! She looked
about her in sudden awe. How should she know that strange word before
ever she heard it? What could be the matter? And then with a shock,
half of fear and half of delight, she realized that for the first time
in her life there had been sanity and significance in the promptings
of her dreams.
"_Cabin_" she repeated to herself. "_Cabin._" An incoherent flood of
dream-stuff welled up and up till her head was dizzy and her
heart seemed bursting. Shadows, and looming bulks of things, and
unintelligible associations fluttered and whirled about, and she
strove vainly with her consciousness to grasp and hold them. For
she felt that there, in that welter of memories, was the key of the
mystery; could she but grasp and hold it, all would be clear and
plain--
O Canim! O Pow-Wah-Kaan! O shades and shadows, what was that?
She turned to Canim, speechless and trembling, the dream-stuff in mad,
overwhelming riot. She was sick and fainting, and could only listen
to the ravishing sounds which proceeded from the cabin in a wonderful
rhythm.
"Hum, _fiddle,_" Canim vouchsafed.
But she did not hear him, for in the ecstasy she was experiencing,
it seemed at last that all things were coming clear. Now! now! she
thought. A sudden moisture swept into her eyes, and the tears trickled
down her cheeks. The mystery was unlocking, but the faintness was
overpowering her. If only she could hold herself long enough! If
only--but the landscape bent and crumpled up, and the hills swayed
back and forth across the sky as she sprang upright and screamed,
"_Daddy! Daddy!_" Then the sun reeled, and darkness smote her, and she
pitched forward limp and headlong among the rocks.
Canim looked to see if her neck had been broken by the heavy pack,
grunted his satisfaction, and threw water upon her from the creek. She
came to slowly, with choking sobs, and sat up.
"It is not good, the hot sun on the head," he ventured.
And she answered, "No, it is not good, and the pack bore upon me
hard."
"We shall camp early, so that you may sleep long and win strength," he
said gently. "And if we go now, we shall be the quicker to bed."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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