understanding. I have made for thee a great match. Heed my words

and walk in the way of my words, go when I say go, come when I bid
thee come, and we shall grow fat with the wealth of this big white

man who is a fool according to his bigness."
The next day no trading was done at the store. The Factor opened

whisky before breakfast, to the delight of McLean and McTavish,
gave his dogs double rations, and wore his best moccasins. Outside

the Fort preparations were under way for a POTLATCH. Potlatch
means "a giving," and John Fox's intention was to signalize his

marriage with Lit-lit by a potlatch as generous as she was good-
looking. In the afternoon the whole tribe gathered to the feast.

Men, women, children, and dogs gorged to repletion, nor was there
one person, even among the chance visitors and stray hunters from

other tribes, who failed to receive some token of the bridegroom's
largess.

Lit-lit, tearfully shy and frightened, was bedecked by her bearded
husband with a new calico dress, splendidly beaded moccasins, a

gorgeous silk handkerchief over her raven hair, a purple scarf
about her throat, brass ear-rings and finger-rings, and a whole

pint of pinchbeck jewellery, including a Waterbury watch.
Snettishane could scarcecontain himself at the spectacle, but

watching his chance drew her aside from the feast.
"Not this night, nor the next night," he began ponderously, "but in

the nights to come, when I shall call like a raven by the river
bank, it is for thee to rise up from thy big husband, who is a

fool, and come to me.
"Nay, nay," he went on hastily, at sight of the dismay in her face

at turning her back upon her wonderful new life. "For no sooner
shall this happen than thy big husband, who is a fool, will come

wailing to my lodge. Then it is for thee to wail likewise,
claiming that this thing is not well, and that the other thing thou

dost not like, and that to be the wife of the Factor is more than
thou didst bargain for, only wilt thou be content with more

blankets, and more tobacco, and more wealth of various sorts for
thy poor old father, Snettishane. Remember well, when I call in

the night, like a raven, from the river bank."
Lit-lit nodded; for to disobey her father was a peril she knew

well; and, furthermore, it was a little thing he asked, a short
separation from the Factor, who would know only greater gladness at

having her back. She returned to the feast, and, midnight being
well at hand, the Factor sought her out and led her away to the

Fort amid joking and outcry, in which the squaws were especially
conspicuous.

Lit-lit quickly found that married life with the head-man of a fort
was even better than she had dreamed. No longer did she have to

fetch wood and water and wait hand and foot upon cantankerous
menfolk. For the first time in her life she could lie abed till

breakfast was on the table. And what a bed!--clean and soft, and
comfortable as no bed she had ever known. And such food! Flour,

cooked into biscuits, hot-cakes and bread, three times a day and
every day, and all one wanted! Such prodigality was hardly

believable.
To add to her contentment, the Factor was cunningly kind. He had

buried one wife, and he knew how to drive with a slack rein that
went firm only on occasion, and then went very firm. "Lit-lit is

boss of this place," he announced significantly at the table the
morning after the wedding. "What she says goes. Understand?" And

McLean and McTavish understood. Also, they knew that the Factor
had a heavy hand.

But Lit-lit did not take advantage. Taking a leaf from the book of
her husband, she at once assumed charge of his own growing sons,

giving them added comforts and a measure of freedom like to that
which he gave her. The two sons were loud in the praise of their

new mother; McLean and McTavish lifted their voices; and the Factor
bragged of the joys of matrimony till the story of her good

behaviour and her husband's satisfaction became the property of all
the dwellers in the Sin Rock district.

Whereupon Snettishane, with visions of his incalculable interest
keeping him awake of nights, thought it time to bestir himself. On

the tenth night of her wedded life Lit-lit was awakened by the
croaking of a raven, and she knew that Snettishane was waiting for

her by the river bank. In her great happiness she had forgotten
her pact, and now it came back to her with behind it all the

childish terror of her father. For a time she lay in fear and
trembling, loath to go, afraid to stay. But in the end the Factor

won the silent victory, and his kindness plus his great muscles and
square jaw, nerved her to disregard Snettishane's call.

But in the morning she arose very much afraid, and went about her
duties in momentary fear of her father's coming. As the day wore

along, however, she began to recover her spirits. John Fox,
soundly berating McLean and McTavish for some petty dereliction of

duty, helped her to pluck up courage. She tried not to let him go
out of her sight, and when she followed him into the huge cache and

saw him twirling and tossing great bales around as though they were
feather pillows, she felt strengthened in her disobedience to her

father. Also (it was her first visit to the warehouse, and Sin
Rock was the chief distributing point to several chains of lesser

posts), she was astounded at the endlessness of the wealth there
stored away.

This sight and the picture in her mind's eye of the bare lodge of
Snettishane, put all doubts at rest. Yet she capped her conviction

by a brief word with one of her step-sons. "White daddy good?" was
what she asked, and the boy answered that his father was the best

man he had ever known. That night the raven croaked again. On the
night following the croaking was more persistent. It awoke the

Factor, who tossed restlessly for a while. Then he said aloud,
"Damn that raven," and Lit-lit laughed quietly under the blankets.

In the morning, bright and early, Snettishane put in an ominous
appearance and was set to breakfast in the kitchen with Wanidani.

He refused "squaw food," and a little later bearded his son-in-law
in the store where the trading was done. Having learned, he said,

that his daughter was such a jewel, he had come for more blankets,
more tobacco, and more guns--especially more guns. He had

certainly been cheated in her price, he held, and he had come for
justice. But the Factor had neither blankets nor justice to spare.

Whereupon he was informed that Snettishane had seen the missionary
at Three Forks, who had notified him that such marriages were not

made in heaven, and that it was his father's duty to demand his
daughter back.

"I am good Christian man now," Snettishane concluded. "I want my
Lit-lit to go to heaven."

The Factor's reply was short and to the point; for he directed his
father-in-law to go to the heavenly antipodes, and by the scruff of

the neck and the slack of the blanket propelled him on that trail
as far as the door.

But Snettishane sneaked around and in by the kitchen, cornering
Lit-lit in the great living-room of the Fort.

"Mayhap thou didst sleep over-sound last night when I called by the
river bank," he began, glowering darkly.

"Nay, I was awake and heard." Her heart was beating as though it
would choke her, but she went on steadily, "And the night before I

was awake and heard, and yet again the night before."
And thereat, out of her great happiness and out of the fear that it

might be taken from her, she launched into an original and glowing
address upon the status and rights of woman--the first new-woman