“Canim,” she whispered in an agony of apprehension.  “Canim, what is that?”

“The white man’s teepee, in which he eats and sleeps.”

She eyed it wistfully, grasping its virtues at a glance and thrilling again at the unaccountable sensations it aroused.  “It must be very warm in time of frost,” she said aloud, though she felt that she must make strange sounds with her lips.

She felt impelled to utter them, but did not, and the next instant Canim said, “It is called a cabin.”

Her heart gave a great leap.  The sounds! the very sounds!  She looked about her in sudden awe.  How should she know that strange word before ever she heard it?  What could be the matter?  And then with a shock, half of fear and half of delight, she realized that for the first time in her life there had been sanity and significance in the promptings of her dreams.

“Cabin” she repeated to herself. “Cabin.” An incoherent flood of dream-stuff welled up and up till her head was dizzy and her heart seemed bursting.  Shadows, and looming bulks of things, and unintelligible associations fluttered and whirled about, and she strove vainly with her consciousness to grasp and hold them.  For she felt that there, in that welter of memories, was the key of the mystery; could she but grasp and hold it, all would be clear and plain—­

O Canim!  O Pow-Wah-Kaan!  O shades and shadows, what was that?

She turned to Canim, speechless and trembling, the dream-stuff in mad, overwhelming riot.  She was sick and fainting, and could only listen to the ravishing sounds which proceeded from the cabin in a wonderful rhythm.

“Hum, fiddle,” Canim vouchsafed.

But she did not hear him, for in the ecstasy she was experiencing, it seemed at last that all things were coming clear.  Now! now! she thought.  A sudden moisture swept into her eyes, and the tears trickled down her cheeks.  The mystery was unlocking, but the faintness was overpowering her.  If only she could hold herself long enough!  If only—­but the landscape bent and crumpled up, and the hills swayed back and forth across the sky as she sprang upright and screamed, “Daddy!  Daddy!” Then the sun reeled, and darkness smote her, and she pitched forward limp and headlong among the rocks.

Canim looked to see if her neck had been broken by the heavy pack, grunted his satisfaction, and threw water upon her from the creek.  She came to slowly, with choking sobs, and sat up.

“It is not good, the hot sun on the head,” he ventured.

And she answered, “No, it is not good, and the pack bore upon me hard.”

“We shall camp early, so that you may sleep long and win strength,” he said gently.  “And if we go now, we shall be the quicker to bed.”

Li Wan said nothing, but tottered to her feet in obedience and stirred up the dogs.  She took the swing of his pace mechanically, and followed him past the cabin, scarce daring to breathe.  But no sounds issued forth, though the door was open and smoke curling upward from the sheet-iron stovepipe.