"Ah! him come thees tam," he whispered, after a long silence, his gaze
bent up the river to the head of the island.
A canoe, with a paddle flashing on either side, was slipping down the
current. In the stern a man's form, and in the bow a woman's, swung
rhythmically to the work. Mrs. Sayther had no eyes for the woman till
the canoe drove in closer and her bizarre beauty peremptorily demanded
notice. A close-fitting blouse of moose-skin, fantastically beaded,
outlined faithfully the well-rounded lines of her body, while a silken
kerchief, gay of color and picturesquely draped, partly covered great
masses of blue-black hair. But it was the face, cast belike in copper
bronze, which caught and held Mrs. Sayther's fleeting glance. Eyes,
piercing and black and large, with a traditionary hint of obliqueness,
looked forth from under clear-stencilled, clean-arching brows. Without
suggesting cadaverousness, though high-boned and prominent, the cheeks
fell away and met in a mouth, thin-lipped and softly strong. It was a
face which advertised the dimmest trace of ancient Mongol blood, a
reversion, after long centuries of wandering, to the parent stem.
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