The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1905-11-09

dark woman held Judith proudly by
the hand as sovereign might carry q
scepter. Judith was her staff Of office,
her emblem Of authority in the house
of Warren Rodney.
| Singing Stream held out her hands to
Sally in gesture Of appeal-and blum
dered. OF the chiefs daughter, walk
ing proudly, Sally was afraid; but a
supplicating half breed in strips of
purple calico, not even hemmed, was a
matter for nlerriment. Sally put her
hands on her hips, arms akimbo, and
laughed dry cackle. The light in the
brown woman's eyes as she looked at
the white was like prairie fires rolling
forward through darkness. There was
no need of 8 common speech between
them. The whole destiny of woman
was in the laugh and the look that an
swered it.
And the man they could have MUIR
dered for came from the house, an un.
heroic figure with suspenders dangling
and corncob pipe in his mouth, sui
len, angry and withal abjectly fright
ened, as mere man inevitably is when
he shifts woman's battle in the air.
The bride, at sight of her husband, took
to Mysteries. She wept, she laughed
and down tumbled her hair. She felt
! the situation demanded a scene. Rod
ney, with marital brevity hardly to
be expected SO soon, commanded Sally
| to go into the house and to ''shut up
Then he faced Singing Stream and
said to her in her own language: ''You
| must go away from here. The pale
| faced woman is my wife by the white
mans law-ring and Bible. No Indian
| marriage about this"
But the brown woman only pointed
to Judith. She asked Rodney had she
not been good squaw to him.
And Rodney, who at best was but a
poltroon, could only repeat: "You got
to keep away from here. It's the white
mans laW-one squaw for one man.
From within came the sound of Sal
ly's lamentation as she called for her
father and brother to take her from
the squaw and contamination. War
ren Rodney was man of few words.
1t had become his unpleasant duty to
act, and to act quickly. He snatched
Judith from her mother and took her
into the house, and he returned with
| his Winchester, which was not loaded,
to Singing Stream.
"You got to 60" he said, and, lev.
cling the Winchester, he repeated the
command. Singing Stream looked at
him with the dumb wonder Of a forest
thing. Il was a good squaw to you,''
she said and did not even curse him.
And, turning, she ran toward the foot
hills with all the length of purple cal
leo trailing.
Now, Mrs. Rodney, nee Tumlin, was
but human, and her cup of happiness
as the wife of squaw man was not
the trimming beaker she had antici-
pated. The expulsion of her predeces-
sor at such time to make room for
her own home coming was, it seemed,
open to criticism. 'The neighborhood''
Ut included perhaps five families liv-
ing in radius of as many hundred
niles felt that the Tumlins had es-
tablished a bad precedent. A squaw
man driving out brown wife to make
room for white is not heroic figure.
1t had been done before, but it would
not hand down we'll in the traditions
OF the settling of this great country.
Trespass of law and order, with their
swift, red handed reckoning, was but
move of the great game of colonial
ton, but to shove out brown woman
for a white was mean move. Few
stopped at the Rodneys' ranch, though
it marked the first break in the journey
from town to the gold mining country.
Rodney had fallen from his estate as
a pioneer; his political opinions were
unsought in the conclaves that sat
and spat at the stove when business
brought them to the joint saloon and
postothce. The women dealt with the
question more openly, scorning fem
mime subtlety at this pass as mad
equate ammunition. When they met
Mrs. Rodney they pulled aside their
skirts and glared. This outra ge
against woman it was woman's work
to sellle.
The Tumlin family did not remain
long enough in the Black Hills country
to witness Sally's failure as the wife of
pioneer. The restlessness of the
"settler," If the paradox be permissi
BILE, was in the marrow of their bones.
The makeshifts Of the wagon, the ad-
ventures Of the road, were the only
home they craved The spring after
Sally's marriage they set forth for
California, the year following for New
Mexico, and still sighed for new worlds
to visit.
,Rodney's squaw wife was taken in
by some neighbors, good folk who were
conversant with all phases of the TO-
nance. They stood by her in her hour
Of trial and afterward continued to
keep her as a servant. Her son Jim
grew up with their own children.
When he was four years Of age his
mother, Singing Stream, died, and Sal
Iy persuaded her husband to take
Young Tim into their own homo nortlv