Arizona republican., 1912-04-01
O6e GOD OF HER PEOPLE
By JAMES OLIVER cURWoop.
Copyright, 1910, by the Pearson Pub
 fishing Co.


 Inspector McBain of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police did not go into sentimental detail when he called in Philip Needham from barracks and explained to him the trouble that was brewing up at the headwaters of the Beaver. He introduced him to Jean Pierrot, the slim, soft-voiced French half-breed who had come down through three hundred miles of wilderness with the news, and who sat with bis big dark eyes staring hard at Philip as the Inspector went over in five min utes the facts which 1t had taken him three-quarters of an hour to tell
 The Sarcees and the Swamp Crees are ready to jump at one another's throats up on the Beaver" said the Inspector. The trouble began with a fight in which the Sarcees murdered a missionary. Isn't That it. Jean?"
 Non. M'sieur," replied the half. breed. They did not murder him. They killed him.
 God save us," chuckled the big h. spector Heres a half savage from the jungle who sees difference be- tween murder and killing which we don't see in law. Philip. According to our code the missionary was mur- dered. and the affair has started trouble that promises a tribal war I'm not going 10 send dozen nor half a dozen men up there to stop the fight I'm going 10 send you-alone-as peacemaker. and to bring back as many of the Sarcees as you like, Cockburn, as factor on the Bearer and you can get all of the assistance you want from him and the Crees. The trouble started over a woman. She's a young Cree. Maballa is her name. Jean says, and you may have to bring her back with you. Shes q pagan and renegade, for she has left the Crees to join the Sarcees."
 It was the second day after. when they were resting from a hard portage on the lower Sturgeon, that Jean Pier rot made answer 10 what the Inspector had said.
 Sometimes, M'sieur," he said in his low quiet voice, ''I think that there must he more than one God-that there must he three. your God. and mine, and God for such as she and her people"
 Philip was lighting his pipe, but paused until the flame of his match burned the tips of his fingers.
 "Maballa. you mean" he said. strik- ing another"
 "Yes, Maballa, Msieur-and the Sarcees."
 They are pagans, said Philip, puff fing out smoke. so how can they have 3 God?"
 There was a time when l believed that there was but one God, M'sieur," replied Jean. "I am Catholic, and 1 carry an ivory cross of the Virgin on my breast. l thought there was but one God-Odr GOd-until l was sent 10 school al Montreal. After that l worked for the Great Company for three years, and l saw a great deal of your God-the God of what l heard called Civilization. It is a different God from the God of our big North: down there even the God of the Virgin is a different God You worship Him in your big churches on one day, and then for the six days that follow you lie, you cheat, you ruin one another, you break the ten commandments. We have no churches. Our God is about us, in the forests, the swamps, in the night play of the aurora; we don't shout His name. we don't have brass bands to work for Him, but most of IS wear His crosses and live up to Him in our way, which is a different way than yours. For these reasons l lnow there are two Gods, my God and yours. and I almost believe there is a hird-for her people"
 Something in the manner of Jeans ,aying these things stirred Philip The half-breed's dark eyes ! ,lowed with a warm ire. His thin | sensitive face seemed 10 quiyer with 1 ln emotion which he fought 10 keep | pack. There was the graceful poise 1 If an animal in his slender, steel ] inewed body as he hunched himself |
 
 ion about him-in the sun shining | n his jet-black hair, in the soft Cree | melody of his voice, the cool daring of 1 lis beautiful eyes.
 And what kind Of God would you | lave for a pagan God?" queried Philip. |
 'I don't know" said Jean. straight | ming himself ''i have thought of il | good deal, M'sieur, but 1 don't know. you can help me" Philip l aught an eager, almost hopeful, look n the others eyes The Sarcees are | TOT only pagans, but the last of what i vas once q great race. There are less han score of them. counting women md children, up where we are going, | l'sieur. It is what is left of the Lone lrrow tribe Twenty years ago, when { was much stronger, this tribe came Ipon a Cree village which had been deserted because of the red plague he small pox, and in one of the tepees hey found a half-dead little babe. de erted bg it's people. They were dead y enemies thcn-the Crees and the ,arcees. M'sieur-and yet the Sarcees ook this babe, and saved it's life-be- ause il was q babe. and helpless. sk you. M'sieur. would people with ut God have done this-when the ther people, the people loith a God. bandoned the child to its death? That hild,. M'sieur, was Maballa, the Cree agan."
 Jeans eyes glistened.
 Would a goddess people have done r, at M'eieur2" he demanded