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The doctor came and went between her home and the village, but always with that solemn headshake, that spoke so much more forcibly than words. "She shall not die!" declared Maarda. "The Tenas Klootchman needs her, she shall not die!" But the woman grew feebler daily, her eyes grew brighter, her cheeks burned with deeper scarlet. "We must fight for it now," said the doctor.
"The Klootchman she came from the river. The man he carry her from the water in his arms." "How do you know that, Joe?" The Indian pointed to certain footprints which were much more deeply marked than the others. "The man he carry heavy weight when he make these, and the Klootchman she weigh, how much? One hundred and ten pounds, sure.
We go through the cliffs, in place of making the portage. It is the swifter way, and if the white Klootchman come this way, she has gone through these gates of the waters. We follow, but not very far, for again we come to the hills, and to a place where the earth is rent, and the waters fall down a wall that is higher than the highest spruce. If the Klootchman's canoe go there it is the end."
She beckoned with a quick uplift of her chin, and said, "We'll sit together here, with no one about us, and I'll tell you of the child." And this was her story: She was the most beautiful little Tenas Klootchman a mother could wish for, bright, laughing, pretty as a spring flower, but just as frail. Such tiny hands, such buds of feet!
And Maarda and he fought the dread enemy hour after hour, day after day. Bereft of its mother's care, the Tenas Klootchman turned to Maarda, laughed to her, crowed to her, until her lonely heart embraced the child as a still evening embraces a tempestuous day. Once she had a long, terrible fight with herself.
At the word "magic" her keen eyes snapped, she set her empty cup aside and looked at me solemnly. "Then you know the story the strange tale?" she asked almost whisperingly. I shook my head. This was always the crucial moment with my Klootchman, when her voice lowers, and she asks if you know things. You must be diplomatic, and never question her in turn.
Maarda said, "You must go to bed, and as soon as you are there, I will take the canoe and go for a doctor. It is two or three miles, but you stay resting, and I'll bring him. We will put the Tenas Klootchman beside you in " she hesitated. Her glance travelled up to the wall above, where a beautiful empty cradle basket hung, with folded silken "blankets" and disused beaded bands.
Across its little forehead hung locks of black, straight hair, and its sturdy limbs were vainly endeavoring to free themselves from the lacing of the "blankets." Maarda took the basket, with an expression on her face that was transfiguring. "Yes, this is my little Tenas Klootchman," she said, as she unlaced the bands, then lifted the plump little creature out on to her lap.
He not carry that weight back to the canoe, because the Klootchman she walk." He pointed again, this time to the smaller footprints, and to Ainley, reading the signs through the Indian's eyes, the explanation amounted to a demonstration. "Yes, yes, I understand," he cried, "but in that case where is she?" The Indian looked up and down the river, then waved a hand upstream.
Maarda had finished her story, but the recollections had saddened her eyes, and for a time we both sat on the deck in the violet twilight without exchanging a word. "Then the little Tenas Klootchman is yours now?" I asked. A sudden radiance suffused her face, all trace of melancholy vanished. She fairly scintillated happiness. "Mine!" she said. "All mine!
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