The Huntress

"Did he go away?"

Loseis shook her head. "Go through the ice with his team."

"Under the water--my father," murmured Bela.

She turned on her mother accusingly. "You have good white husband, and you take Charley after!"

"My mother make me," Loseis said with sad stolidity.

Bela pondered on these matters, filled with a deep excitement. Her mother kneaded the dough.

"I half a white woman," the girl murmured at last, more to herself than the other. "That is why I strange here."

Again her mother looked at her intently, presaging another disclosure. "Me, my father a white man too," she said in her abrupt way. "It is forgotten now."

Bela stared at her mother, breathing quickly.

"Then--I 'most white!" she whispered, with amazed and brightening eyes. "Now I understand my heart!" she suddenly cried aloud. "Always I love the white people, but I not know. Always I ask Musq'oosis tell me what they do. I love them