I said nothing, but I waited. And then one night the feeling
overcame me. I was in the Hudson's Bay store when an Indian came
in from the north with a large pack of buckskin. As they unrolled
it a dash of its insinuating odor filled the store. I went over
and leaned above the skins a second, then buried my face in them,
swallowing, drinking the fragrance of them, that went to my head
like wine. Oh, the wild wonder of that wood-smoked tan, the
subtilty of it, the untamed smell of it! I drank it into my lungs,
my innermost being was saturated with it, till my mind reeled
and my heart seemed twisted with a physical agony. My childhood
recollections rushed upon me, devoured me. I left the store in a
strange, calm frenzy, and going rapidly to the mission house I
confronted my Father Paul and demanded to be allowed to go "home,"
if only for a day. He received the request with the same refusal and
the same gentle sigh that I had so often been greeted with, but this
time the desire, the smoke-tan, the heart-ache, never lessened.
Night after night I would steal away by myself and go to the border
of the village to watch the sun set in the foothills, to gaze at the
far line of sky and prairie, to long and long for my father's lodge.
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