Snoqualmie sat watching her with glittering, triumphant eyes. To him she was no more than some lovely animal of which he had become the owner; and ownership of course brought with it the right to tantalize and to torture. A malicious smile crossed his lips as he saw how sorrowfully her gaze rested on her old home.
"Look forward," he said, "not back; look forward to your life with Snoqualmie and to the lodge that awaits you in the land of the Cayuses."
She started, and her face flushed painfully; then without looking at him she replied,--
"Wallulah loves her home, and leaving it saddens her."
A sparkle of vindictive delight came into his eyes.
"Do the women of the Willamette feel sad when they go to live with their husbands? It is not so with the Cayuse women. They are glad; _they_ care for the one they belong to. They love to sit in the sun at the door of the wigwam and say to the other women, 'My man is brave; he leads the war party; he has many scalps at his belt. Who is brave like my man?'"
Wallulah shuddered. He saw it, and the sparkle of malice in his eyes flashed into sudden anger.
"Does the young squaw tremble at these things? Then she must get used to them. She must learn to bring wood and water for Snoqualmie's lodge, too. She must learn to wait on him as an Indian's wife ought. The old wrinkled squaws, who are good for nothing but to be beasts of burden, shall teach her."
There came before her a picture of the ancient withered hags, the burden-bearers, the human vampires of the Indian camps, the vile in word and deed, the first to cry for the blood of captives, the most eager to give taunts and blows to the helpless; were they to be her associates, her teachers? Involuntarily she lifted her hand, as if to push from her a future so dreadful.
"Wallulah will bring the wood and the water. Wallulah will work. The old women need not teach her."
"That is well. But one thing more you must learn; and that is to hold up your head and not look like a drooping captive. Smile, laugh, be gay. Snoqualmie will have no clouded face, no bent head in his lodge."
She looked at him imploringly. The huge form, the swarthy face, seemed to dominate her, to crush her down with their barbarian strength and ferocity. She dropped her eyes again, and lay there on the furs like some frightened bird shrinking from the glance of a hawk.