to meet me, frisking about my path with unmistakable delight. Chän is a
black shaggy dog, "a thoroughbred little mongrel" of whom I am very
fond. Chän seems to understand many words in Sioux, and will go to her
mat even when I whisper the word, though generally I think she is guided
by the tone of the voice. Often she tries to imitate the sliding
inflection and long-drawn-out voice to the amusement of our guests, but
her articulation is quite beyond my ear. In both my hands I hold her
shaggy head and gaze into her large brown eyes. At once the dilated
pupils contract into tiny black dots, as if the roguish spirit within
would evade my questioning.

Finally resuming the chair at my desk I feel in keen sympathy with my
fellow-creatures, for I seem to see clearly again that all are akin. The
racial lines, which once were bitterly real, now serve nothing more than
marking out a living mosaic of human beings. And even here men of the
same color are like the ivory keys of one instrument where each
resembles all the rest, yet varies from them in pitch and quality of
voice. And those creatures who are for a time mere echoes of another's
note are not unlike the fable of the thin sick man whose distorted
shadow, dressed like a real creature, came to the old master to make him
follow as a shadow. Thus with a compassion for all echoes in human
guise, I greet the solemn-faced "native preacher" whom I find awaiting
me. I listen with respect for God's creature, though he mouth most
strangely the jangling phrases of a bigoted creed.

As our tribe is one large family, where every person is related to all
the others, he addressed me:--

"Cousin, I came from the morning church service to talk with you."