“But the time came when she no longer sang. She grew silent, and each day gazed long upon the river. Her hands touched me no more with the touch of soft fires. So I grew kinder still. I spoke soft words. I made sweet sounds to call her. But she frowned and pushed me away. “My breast ached much, so I said: ‘You think always of that baby man whose finger I bit. I could choke him with my fingers—_so_!’ But she laughed in my face, making sharp jokes to fling at me. I was stung as with whips when the whippers are angry. I said: ‘Go back to your baby man!’ “I did not wish her to go; they were the words of my anger. But she got up very straight and tall. There was lightning in her eyes. Thunder slept in her face. And her hair seemed as a black cloud that blows up angrily out of the hot south! “She went to the tepee; she made ready to go; and all the while I watched with fires in my breast. Then suddenly she turned upon me—her face was a flame. She flung words at me: ‘You are all the same!’ She spit in my face! I have been struck in the teeth by strong men, but never have I felt so hard a blow. I sat as a man in a dream. I heard the angry song of her skirts as she fled up the back-trail. And then I was as one who wakens with a great hunger, and smells raw meat! I leaped up; I ran after her; I meant to kill her! “I caught her; I struck her with my fist, even as I struck the man who lied. I put my fingers at her throat and pressed very hard. I carried her back to the tepee. I thought I had killed her. “Oh, the smell of her flesh as she lay very still—as though I had stepped upon a flower! “And then after a long time, when my breast was growing sick, she opened her eyes and looked upon me. O tender, tender were her eyes and full of soft fires! It was the old look, only it was stronger. She raised herself to her knees; she put her arms around my neck; she put her lips on my lips; she called me soft names! “I thought this was some woman’s trick. I pushed her from me. I said: ‘I am hungry; you are my squaw; cook my food!’ And she brought wood and water; she made a fire; she worked for me. All the while her eyes were soft, and often she touched me with finger tips that burned as of old with soft fires. I could not understand. When I was kind, then was she not kind. And now, with the blue marks of my angry fingers at her throat, she worked for me, her eyes were soft for me, her finger-tips were warm for me. I cannot understand.” Yellow Fox took the pipe from my hands and smoked long in silence. He sighed deeply, breathing in great breaths of smoke. At length, growing impatient, I ventured a question: “And what became of Mignon?” He laid down his pipe and said in a low voice: “The woman who wailed in the lodge had not forgotten! “The plums ripened,” he continued, “and the flowers that bloomed upon our summer trail were heavy with seed. The hills grew brown. A greyness like smoke was in all the air. The grapes hung thick and purple.