that shaped themselves, drifting hither and yon, were the Great Mystery’s
passing thoughts. But he had deprived all these things of speech, as he
did not trust them fully, and they could only speak to man in dreams, or
in some passing mood, when they could communicate to him the feeling of
one of the Great Spirits, and warn man of what was about to befall him.
Judith was not quite four when she took this memorable drive with her
mother, but the impression of these things abided through all her years.
It was to the measureless spaces of desert loneliness that she learned to
bring her sorrows in the days of her arid youth, and to feel a kinship
with all its moods and to hear in the voice of its silence a never-failing
consolation.

And when they had come within a mile of Warren Rodney’s cabin on Elder
Creek, Singing Stream halted and prepared for the great event of
reinstatement. First she made a splendid toilet of purple calico torn into
strips and tied about the waist to simulate the skirts of the devil woman.
Over these she wore a shirt of buckskin, broidered with beads of many
colors, and a necklace of elk teeth, wound twice about the throat. On her
feet she wore new moccasins of tanned elk-hide, and these, too, were
beaded in many colors. Her hair, now braided with strips of scarlet
flannel, hung below the waist. And she walked to Rodney’s cabin, not as an
outgrown mistress, but as the daughter of a chief. The little Judith held
up her head and clung tight to the doll. She knew that something of moment
was about to happen.

The gala trio, Singing Stream, Judith, and Judith’s doll, presented
themselves at Rodney’s house, before which the bride was washing clothes,
the day being fine. Sally, as usual, wore one of the rose-colored calicoes
with the collar turned well in and the sleeves rolled above the elbows.
She washed vigorously, with a steady splashing of suds. Sally enjoyed this