"
In the gloom, with foreboding eating at her heart, Yellow Bird's
red lips parted in a smile as those days came back to her, for
they were pleasing days to think about. But after that the years
sped swiftly in her mind until the day when the little boy--a man
grown--came to save her tribe, and her own life, and the life of
Sun Cloud, and of Slim Buck her husband. Since then prosperity and
happiness had been her lot. The spirits had been good. They had
not let her grow old, but had kept her still beautiful. And Sun
Cloud, her little daughter, was beautiful, and Slim Buck was more
than ever her god among men, and her people were happy. And all
this she owed to the man who was sleeping under the gloom of the
sky outside, the hunted man, the outlaw, "the little boy grown
up"--Jolly Roger McKay.
As she listened, and stared up at the smoke hole, strange spirits
were whispering to her, and Yellow Bird's blood ran a little
faster and her eyes grew bigger and brighter in the darkness. They
seemed to be accusing her. They told her it was because of her
that Roger McKay had come in that winter of starvation and death,
and had robbed and almost killed, that she and Slim Buck and
little Sun Cloud might live. That was the beginning, and the
thrill of it had got into the blood of Neekewa, her "little white
brother grown up.
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