Stránka:roll 1916.djvu/145

Tiibo Activities xax and the friends of her youth grew old a.. ^ wrinkled, her tribes- people grew infirm and feeble with age, but the face ci the woman with the trailing foot remained as beautiful, as young, as unlined as when die first met and loved the young hunter who had gone out of her life many scores of moons ago. "And far away in his distant lodge the hunter-husband grew . old and weakened in body and mind; his aim was no longer sure, hht eye no longer keen, and at his side sat his coudn, she who was once so light of foot, so joyous in the dance, so strong and straight and agile, but the years had weighted her once swift feet, nad aged her face, had stooped her shoulders, had stiffened her muscles, her ankles, her hands. Old and wrinkled she crouched in her blanket, for her blood ran slowly, her youth was gone — she danced no more. "And one day he returned to look upon her whom he had left, to hear her laugh, and to learn that a true woman's love wiU keep her young and flowerlike forever. With a great cry he bowed himself before her, and though he was old and feeble and ugly, although he was false and had failed her, and had forgotten her — ^womanlike she outstretched her arms toward him, for was he not the father of her children? "But the Sagalie Tyee (the Ahnighty) spckt out of the sky, and word is law to all races, to all people. 'You shall not have her again, O Hunter 1' spoke the voice. 'You have been untrue. She has been true. Untruth cannot mate with truth, dishonor cannot mate with honor, falsity caimot mate with fidelity. I, the Sagalie Tyee, chief of the skies and of earth and of the seas, sb^ place bar and her (Mdren where their youth and their beauty and their laughter shall forever taunt and reproach your axx^ced, misshapen heart They shall never grow or ugly, and she with her trailing foot afaaU be- come that most beautiJful and graceful thing that I have ever created. Watch the morning skies, O Hunter of the double face, theKkrable heart, and <» the first light of the rising mm you wfll see seven perfect things. Beauty, Grace, Laughter, Youth, Fidelity, Love, and Truth— seven gknious things that you have forfeited, have cast aiddet ' "In the morning the aged hunter sought Kah-lo-ka's lodge. It was empty, but against iht gokl of the rising sun there arose a group ol sevn peut-n^te swans. They poised above him for a moment, then winged their way southward. He watched in an agony of Imidiness thdr gracdul flight; he listened in an agony of heartadie to their aear, wikl pipbg laughter, HmX ditftad btdtiiud Hk« tbe note* of a dittut itate; Idt afad ^