about her, all engaged in sewing moccasins and beadwork. They
laughed at his entrance, and badinage, which linked Zarinska to
him, ran high. But one after the other they were unceremoniously
bundled into the outer snow, whence they hurried to spread the
tale through all the camp.

His cause was well pleaded, in her tongue, for she did not know
his, and at the end of two hours he rose to go.

'So Zarinska will come to the White Man's lodge? Good! I go now
to have talk with thy father, for he may not be so minded. And I
will give him many tokens; but he must not ask too much. If he
say no? Good! Zarinska shall yet come to the White Man's lodge.'

He had already lifted the skin flap to depart, when a low
exclamation brought him back to the girl's side. She brought
herself to her knees on the bearskin mat, her face aglow with
true Eve-light, and shyly unbuckled his heavy belt. He looked
down, perplexed, suspicious, his ears alert for the slightest
sound without.

But her next move disarmed his doubt, and he smiled with
pleasure. She took from her sewing bag a moosehide sheath, brave
with bright beadwork, fantastically designed. She drew his great
hunting-knife, gazed reverently along the keen edge, half tempted
to try it with her thumb, and shot it into place in its new home.
Then she slipped the sheath along the belt to its customary
resting-place, just above the hip. For all the world, it was like
a scene of olden time,--a lady and her knight.