"Hester--Hester Orval!"

He turned sternly, and said, "Who are you? What do you know of Hester
Orval?"

The Indian shook his head gravely, and replied, "You spoke her name, my
brother."

"I spoke one word of her name. You have spoken two."

"One does not know what one speaks. There are words which are as sounds,
and words which are as feelings. Those come to the brain through the
ear; these to the soul through sign, which is more than sound. The
Indian hath knowledge, even as the white man; and because his heart is
open, the trees whisper to him; he reads the language of the grass and
the wind, and is taught by the song of the bird, the screech of the hawk,
the bark of the fox. And so he comes to know the heart of the man who
hath sickness, and calls upon someone, even though it be a weak woman,
to cure his sickness; who is bowed low as beside a grave, and would stand
upright. Are not my words wise? As the thoughts of a child that dreams,
as the face of the blind, the eye of the beast, or the anxious hand of
the poor, are they not simple, and to be understood?"

Just Trafford made no reply. But behind, Pierre was singing in the
plaintive measure of a chant:

"A hunter rideth the herd abreast,
The Scarlet Hunter from out of the West,
Whose arrows with points of flame are drest,
Who loveth the beast of the field the best,