The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-02

words that Tn type would resemble train of dinkey dump cars, with link couplings. He wondered what it all meant and managed to ask her. Her dark face frightened as she made him understand that it meant, first, a bird, a little bird, a little singing bird and finally he gathered it all. Gall me-" she said in Cree. for short. Nick-Kah- Moo -Hea-Yah-C Cess, a singing bird"
 And then as she went on telling him how she happened to be named so-how she happened to be-her face grew al most beautiful.
 Many years ago." she began. (she was all of eighteen), my father and my mother lived alone in the wildnerness. They were young, then, my father and my mother-young as you and I-aIid they
 were very, very lonely and they asked Wes-a-ka-chackk to send them a little
 papoose to keep my mother company
 when my father went into the forest to tend his traps. This was in the moon of the golden leaf and then came the snow and the trapping time, and when my mother was much alone she prayed to Wes-a-ka-chack to hurry up with the baby she had asked for. And when the ice went out and the wild geese came
 back there came a great white swan. winter than the snow and more beau tiful my mother said, than any other
 bird, and it brought to my mother well, me, only not like I am now-just little-bird with-no-wings, she said, and so she called me.
 After that my mother was very happy ana so. in our house Wes-a-ka-check is l loved and worshipped. And that Is why we find it hard to follow the mission man who comes over from Dunvegan to ask us to close our house and our hearts to Wes-a-ka-chack and worship the spirit 1 which the white man worships. It is .,.k ,4...-f 1 God of our fathers, who has always been
 good to us, who, long before the white
 man came, kept us in the hollow of his 1 hand just as I would hold the egg of a l bird. Do you think" she asked eagerly,
 leaning toward him, the white mans
 God would send us a little papoose If
 We asked him?"
 Qulen Sabe-I don't know" said Ban nihan, who remembered that this duslSy
 damsel did not speak Spanish. 15ut Wes-a- -ka-c -chack," she said with 1 the faintest hint of a smile about the
 mouth, The would
 1 And when Bannihan only gazed upon
 her wistful face, showing no interest l in her. her God or the gift he could
 give, she crept toward him leaning on the little table and asked: Have you
 wife-scmewhere?"
 l 'I had-once. he stammered. l "Where is she now?'
 l a5annihan, remembering his Little | Eva half smiled as he pointed upward.
 To undertake with his limited Cree vo- | cabulary to explain how, and why and
 all the rest of 1t, would have been
 hopeless task, so he handed her a large l white lie and let her go on. 1 Was she beautiful-beautiful white l skin, so?" and she touched his face. "Fairer-a thousand times fairer than
 l." he answered, glad to be able to tell i her the truth this time.
 After that she sat silent for a space
 then asked If he still loved the other one
 who was fair and beautiful and when 1 he said he was trying to forget, she
 hinted innocently that she would help
 him.
 By this time Bannihan had come to i the conclusion that he ought to send l this guieess child of the wild back to
 her camp. and rising he suggested,
 pointing to the west, that 1t was growing l dark.
 "O be not afraid" she said putting a l plump hot hand in his; "Wes-a- a-chack l watches over me always and he will let
 no harm come to you, for he knows that
 love you. that you are mine, even as
 I am yours"
 Bannihan, flushing, stood up and took l her hands in his and said, gently that l she must go.
 "Then you don't-you do not-want
 me?" she asked withdrawing her hands
 and stepping back.
 Why" he stammered. sweeping the l room with his right hand, there's no room for a woman-here.
 The girl came slowly up to the big Irishman, touched his broad breast with
 the tip of her brown finger and said, significantly; NO room here?' | She peered into his bewildered face and repeated. tapping his chest three
 times "No-room-here. We Crees have a word-a pretty saying, which we say to all, even to the tired stranger who
 peeps into our tent, 'Peen-de-cain-pa-ta waugh, and it means come in, plenty of roo.l always room. What Is the word of the white man?" she asked in Crees,
 which means mo room?' "
 This was entirely too much for the warm-hearted Irshman and he reached impulsivey for the Indian. With a slight movement of her supple body she avoided him and passed noiseless as a shadow from the room.
 Bannihan, recovering from his surprise, started to follow, calling her to stop, but she gave no heed. He watched her as he had watched the others until she disappeared behind the bluff Then he filled his pipe, sat down and began to think, and think and think. The days came and went-the long sunny summer days-and the more he tried to forget the more he remembered the Indian girl. Naturally her flight only made him all the more interested in her. And then, too, her simplicity, her innocence and her blind unquestion- ing faith in the God of her father was beautiful and inspiring And she was wise, too, not with the wisdom of the world but she knew, without having been taught, what love was, and knew that If there was no room In the heart there
 would be no room in the hogaon, and so she had left it and him. leaving him infinitely more lonely than she had found him.
 And where was the Sunbeam--Litne Eva-what of her? In his church once married always married, and while he
 was not sure as to the binding of the Mormon ceremony, he would not take the risk.
 One day an Indian messenger came running by with dispatches from Ors- dale at Edmonton, mostly for Smith, but one was for him, ordering him to report to the Silent One at Dunvegan This pleased him immensely for he could now see Father Also, the priest at that post, and find out just how matters stood. Father Also told the Irishman that the Mormon ceremony was nil and not to
 worry, but get married and try to con vert the heather at once, reminding him that, sc far, there were no Irish half breeds in his diocese.
 Convert her!" repeated Bannihan, and then seeing the dark frown on the fla tners face, he covered. "Yes-certain- ly, Father, certainly
 It was the moon of the golden leaf when Bannihan called at the camp of