His coming, however, and his reference to Memotas had strangely broken the quiet monotony of years. Then what she had done for him in the wigwam, their conversation in the trail, and above all, his gallant rescue of her from the terrible catamount, had aroused new emotions within her and opened up her mind to a wider vision, until now she saw that she was no longer the young free Indian girl with no thoughts but those of her childhood, but a woman who must now act and decide for herself. But with the characteristic reserve of her people she kept all the newborn emotions and aspirations hid in her heart. The power to control the feelings and passions among the Indians is not confined to the sterner sex. Schooled in a life of hardship, the women as well as the men can put on the mask of apparent indifference, while at the same time the heart is racked by intensest feeling, or the body is suffering most horrid torture. Death in its most dreadful form may be staring them in the face, and yet the outsider may look in vain for the blanching of the cheek, or the quivering of a muscle. Very early in life does this stern education begin. "That is my best child," said an Indian father, as he pointed out an apparently happy little girl seven or eight years old, in his wigwam. "Why should she be your favourite child?" was asked him. "Why? Because she, of all my children, will go the longest without food, without crying," was his answer. To suffer, but to show no sign, is the proverb of the true Indian. And yet Astumastao would not admit even to herself that she was deeply in love with Oowikapun. She had treasured the fond conceit in her heart that the one all-absorbing passion with her was that which she had freely revealed to him, and she in her simplicity had honestly believed that no other love could take its place, or even share the room in her heart. But here was a rude awakening. She was a mystery to herself. Why these sighs and tears when she was alone and unwatched by her bright-eyed, alert young associates? Why did the image of this one young Indian hunter intrude itself so persistently before her in her waking hours? It is true he came not frequently to her in her dreams, for we dream but little of those we love the most, and who are in our memories and on our hearts continually during the waking hours of active life. Untaught in the schools and free from all the guiles of heartless coquetry, an orphan girl in an Indian village, with neither prudery on the one hand, nor hothouse teachings on the other, which turn the heads of so many girls, Astumastao was to herself a riddle which she could not solve--a problem the most difficult of any she had tried to understand.