“The woman was tall and not thick. Much hair she had—much hair that hung above her face like a black cloud upon a white sky in the evening. And in all the air about, there grew a smell sweeter than the earth-smell when the spring rains fall. I sat very still; I did not wish to frighten the dream away. And the woman came toward me with much rustling of garments, like the speaking of green leaves in the wind or the thin, small drumming of raindrops. “Then, between the puffing of two smoke rings, the Spring had grown big—and was the Summer! It was Mignon! It was Mignon!” * * * * * Yellow Fox lifted his face to the full moon, and his voice was raised to a poignant cry as he uttered the word that was half sound, half smell. Then for some time he brooded with his chin resting in his hands, while the women-singers within filled the heavy air with wailings. At length he sat up and leisurely filled his pipe. His face had become a wrinkled mask again. He smoked awhile, then passing the pipe to me, he continued, and his voice was thick as though he still breathed smoke: “After the snows have run away, the earth-smell rises and all things grow drunk with it. The he-wolf sniffs it; he forgets his last year’s mate; he takes another and forgets. The air and the earth and the water are full of new loves, and nothing is ashamed. “It was so. “When the next sunlight came I made ready for the trail. I rolled up my tepee. All the while my woman stared upon the woman who had come, with eyes made sharp with hate. I called in my ponies from the grazing places. I hitched a pony to the drag. I put upon the drag the tepee and the food and the little box that Mignon had brought with her—a box of many garments—garments that made songs when she walked, like the songs of rain in the leaves. I lifted Mignon upon the drag-pony’s back, and we rode away on the summer trail. “I heard my woman wailing and crying out bitterly in my lodge, but a spirit led me on—the spirit that calls the green things out in the spring—the spirit that whispers into the ear of the sleeping River and makes it leap up and shout and tear the thongs that bind it—the spirit that makes the wolves cry out in the lonesome places that the mate may hear. That spirit went calling down the trail I followed. “And we came to a place by the river where the hills were high and many leaves made coolness. There I pitched the tepee; and the days were as little flashes of light, and the nights were as little shadows passing. “Never before had I found it so good to live. Mignon made songs that laughed and cried; and when she did not sing, the rustle of her garments was a song. I became as a squaw; I brought the wood and water; I made the fires; I cooked. I was bowed before her. Never before had I bowed before anyone, for I was strong. I could not understand. She was so soft and white and of so sweet a smell!