"I stay," she said simply. "All time, want my own people; all time,
Red Feather say some day take me to white people--want to go, all
time. But Red Feather never tell me 'BIG HAIR.' Didn't know what
it was I was looking for--never thought it would be something like
you."

"But you ain't afraid now, are you, little one?"

She shook her head, and drawing nearer, seated herself on the ground
before the dugout. "You LOOK Big Hair," she explained sedately,
"but your speech is talk of weak squaw."

Somewhat disconcerted by these words, Willock sat down opposite her,
and resumed his pipe as if to assert his sex. "I seem weak to you,"
he explained, "because I love you, child, and want to make friends
with you. But let me meet a big man--well, you'd see, then!" He
looked so ferocious as he uttered these words, that she started up
like a frightened quail, grasping her blanket about her.

"No, no, honey," he cooed abjectly, "I wouldn't hurt a fly. Me, I
was always a byword amongst my pards. They'd say, 'There goes Brick
Willock, what never harmed nobody.' When they kept me in at school
I never clumb out the window, and it was me got all the prize cards
at Sunday-school. How comes it, honey, that you ain't forgot to
talk like civilized beings?"

"Red Feather, him always put me with squaw that know English--that
been to school on the reservation. Never let me learn talk like
the Indians. Him always say some day take me to my own people.