you do, speak, and she shall be your wife."

Ambrosio shut his lips tightly and waited for the young man's answer.
And the young man stared back, his ruddy cheek paling under its sunburn,
and spoke not. A whirling panorama of visions was filling his brain as
he realized what the old chief's words meant. He saw himself living the
life of these people; renouncing everything that meant "the world" and
"life" to him--everything except Barbara; driving burros loaded with wood
to town and tramping about its streets with a basket of pottery at his
back; saw himself with painted face and nude, smeared body dancing the
clownish antics of the Koshare; planting prayer sticks; sprinkling the
sacred meal; taking part and pretending belief in all the heathen rites
of the pueblo secret religion--and then Barbara sprang out of the house,
crying to her father in the Indian tongue, "Wait! Wait!"

Both men turned toward her inquiringly. She stood before them,
hesitating, excited, her eyes on the ground, as if anxious but yet
unwilling to speak.

"Father," she began in Spanish, "it is useless for you and the señor to
speak longer about this. For since I have returned to my home I do not
feel as I did before." She stopped an instant and then went on
hurriedly, pouring out her words with now and then little, gasping stops
for breath. "Now I do not wish to marry him. I wish to marry one of my
own people. He is not an Indian and never can become one. I know now
that I can never be anything but an Indian and so it is better for me to
marry one of my own people. I do not wish to marry the señor, even if he
should become one of us."

Wemple looked at her blankly, as if hardly comprehending her words, and