"I am better," he said. "I am well. I want to
thank you--and the others." He made a step toward her, and the strength of
his left leg gave way. He would have fallen if she had not darted to him so
quickly that she made a prop for him, and her eyes looked up into his
whitened face, big and frightened and filled with pain.
"Oo-ee-ee," she said in Cree, her red lips rounded as she saw him flinch,
and that one word, a song in a word; came to him like a flute note.
"It hurts--a little," he said. He dropped back on his bunk, and Oachi sank
upon the skins at his feet, looking up at him steadily with her wonderful,
pure eyes, her mouth still rounded, little wrinkles of tense anxiety drawn
in her forehead. Roscoe laughed.
For a few moments his soul was filled with a strange gladness. He reached
out his hand and stroked it over her shining hair, and a radiance such as
he had never seen leapt into her eyes. "You--talk--French?" he asked
slowly.
She nodded.
"Then tell me this--you are hungry--starving?"
She nodded again, and made a cup of her two small hands. "No meat. This
little--so much--flour--" Her throat trembled and her voice fluttered. But
even as she measured out their starvation her face was looking at him
joyously. And then she added, with the gladness of a child, "_Feesh_, for
you," and pointed to the simmering pot.
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