Since she was but a child
had men who looked upon her felt this same longing, this stirring of
the worshipper within. But few had dared the wall of quietness about
her; therefore, she had remained apart. Only Prix Laroux of all those
who had seen her grow into her magnificent womanhood at Grand Portage
had come to her with his gift of faith and tied himself to hand for
life, and he came not with the love of man but rather as one who
follows a goddess. Yet it was that aching desire to serve her which
sent him.
And now it gripped the young factor of Fort de Seviere and he looked
among the Assiniboines for a gift.
Here a squaw held forth to him a garment that took his eye at once.
Of doeskin it was, soft and white as a lady's hand, and cut after the
fashion of the Indian woman's dress, in a single piece from throat to
ankle, the sleeves straight from the shoulder, and at edge and seam,
sewed with thorn and sinew, rippled and fluttered a heavy fringe the
length of a man's hand.
Across the breast there gleamed and glittered a solid plastron of the
beadwork so justly famed for its beauty of colour and design, which
came from the hands of none save the women of this tribe, and at hem
and elbow, above the dangling fringe, there ran a heavy band of it.
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