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“My father, my mother,” he begged, “I ask you to forgive me this one disobedience. I ask you to forgive that I have, amid my fight and struggle for English education, forgotten a single custom of my people. I have tried to honor all the ancient rules and usages of my forefathers, but I forgot this one thing, and I cannot, cannot do it! My wife I must choose for myself.”

“You will marry–whom, then?” asked the old chief.

“I have given no thought to it–yet,” he faltered.

“Yes,” said his mother, urged by the knowing heart of a woman, “yes, George, you have thought of it.”

“Only this hour,” he answered, looking directly into his mother’s eyes. “Only now that I see you want me to give my life to someone else. But my life belongs to the white girl, Mrs. Evans’ sister, if she will take it. I shall offer it to her to-morrow–to-day.”

His mother’s face took on the shadow of age. “You would marry a white girl?” she exclaimed, incredulously.

“Yes,” came the reply, briefly, decidedly.

“But your children, your sons and hers–they could never hold the title, never be chief,” she said, rising to her feet.

He winced. “I know it. I had not thought of it before–but I know it. Still, I would marry her.”

“But there would be no more chiefs of the Grand Mansion name,” cut in his father. “The title would go to your aunt’s sons. She is a Grand Mansion no longer; she, being married, is merely a Straight-Shot, her husband’s name. The Straight-Shots never had noble blood, never wore a title. Shall our family title go to a Straight-Shot?” and the elder chief mouthed the name contemptuously.

Again the boy winced. The hurt of it all was sinking in–he hated the Straight-Shots, he loved his own blood and bone. With lightning rapidity he weighed it all mentally, then spoke: “Perhaps the white girl will not marry me,” he said slowly, and the thought of it drove the dark red from his cheeks, drove his finger-nails into his palms.

“Then, then you will marry Dawendine, our choice?” cried his mother, hopefully.

“I shall marry no one but the white girl,” he answered, with set lips. “If she will not marry me, I shall never marry, so the Straight-Shots will have our title, anyway.”

The door closed behind him. It was as if it had shut forever between him and his own.

But even with this threatened calamity looming before her, the old Indian mother’s hurt heart swelled with a certain pride in his wilful actions.

“What bravery!” she exclaimed. “What courage to hold to his own choice! What a man!”

“Yes,” half bemoaned his father, “he is a red man through and through. He defies his whole nation in his fearlessness, his lawlessness. Even I bow to his bravery, his self-will, but that bravery is hurting me here, here!” and the ancient chief laid his hand above his heart.

There was no reply to be made by the proud though pained mother. She folded her “broadcloth” about her, filled her small carved pipe and sat for many hours smoking silently, silently, silently. Now and again she shook her head mournfully, but her dark eyes would flash at times with an emotion that contradicted her dejected attitude. It was an emotion born of self-exaltation, for had she not mothered a man?–albeit that manhood was revealing itself in scorning the traditions and customs of her ancient race.

And young George was returning from his father’s house to the Mission with equally mixed emotions. He knew he had dealt an almost unforgivable blow to those beloved parents whom he had honored and obeyed from his babyhood. Once he almost turned back. Then a vision arose of a fair young English girl whose unhappy childhood he had learned of years ago, a sweet, homeless face of great beauty, lips that were made for love they had never had, eyes that had already known more of tears than they should have shed in a lifetime. Suppose some other youth should win this girl away from him? Already several of the young men from the town drove over more frequently than they had cause to. Only the week before he had found her seated at the little old melodeon playing and singing a duet with one of these gallants. He locked his teeth together and strode rapidly through the forest path, with the first full realization that she was the only woman in all the world for him.