It was sunset on the river Pend d’Oreille. The last rays of the day-God, glinting through the tangled vines screening the great porch of the homestead of the Horseshoe Bend Ranch, fell upon a face of rare type. The features were rather prominent and well defined. The rich olive complexion, the grave, pensive countenance, proclaimed a proud descent from the only true American⁠—the Indian. Of mixed blood, was Cogewea; a “breed”!⁠—the socially ostracized of two races. Her eyes of the deepest jet, sparkled, when under excitement, like the ruby’s fire. Hair of the same hue was as lustrous as the raven’s wing, falling when loose, in great billowy folds, enveloping her entire form. Her voice was low and musical, with a laugh to madden the gods.

Cogewea’s mother had died when she was but a small child, and her father, Bertram McDonnald, had followed the gold rush to Alaska, leaving her and two sisters to be cared for by the old Indian grandmother. Through the aid of friends⁠—an inherent principle in Indian life⁠—the wolf was kept from the teepee door. During all the long years no word had come from the silent North, and it was supposed that this father had succumbed to death in the realms of storms and ghastly whiteness.

Ofttimes the camas and salmon were not plentiful in the smoky lodge, and the little orphans were no strangers to hunger. But despite this, the children were endowed with good health and vigorous constitutions, due to the devoted care of the primitive-minded grandmother. Life in the open, the sweat house and cold river baths, had stamped their every fiber with bounding vitality.

Cogewea, more than her two sisters, was own-headed and at times wilful. She could ride well and made long strolls into the bordering mountains. These runaway-trips were not unattended with danger and consequently were a source of considerable solicitude on the part of the old grandparent. Unlike other children, the repeated warnings that Sne-nah1 would catch her, had no effect. Contrary to all precedent, the little “breed” defied this dreaded devourer of children by extending her rambles farther and still farther into the luring wilderness. Like some creature born of the wild, neither fancied nor actual dangers deterred her from her set course.

At last, notwithstanding her antipathy to the culture of the pale face, the aged squaw was constrained to listen to the pleadings of the good Sisters, and at the age of twelve the little “woods-savage” and her two sisters were placed in the convent school. This measure was resorted to only after Cogewea returned one evening, her horse bearing an ugly cut on its hip, received from the claws of a cougar. The fierce animal had leaped from a tree and the child escaped only through the agility of her mount. With a mighty bound the horse had thwarted the hungry cat of its prey, with no other injury than the knife-like wound, neither deep nor serious.

The weaning process from the old life was slow, but in time Cogewea adapted herself to the new conditions and was an apt student. She seemed to imbibe knowledge, and not content with the scant learning there afforded, and looking to the future, she crossed the Continent and entered the Carlisle Indian School, from which she graduated with high honors at the age of twenty-one.

Such was Cogewea: “Chipmunk,” of the Okanogans; the “breed” girl with the hypnotic eyes, who stood dreaming on the vine-clad porch of the H-B Ranch, the home of her oldest sister, Julia Carter. An ambitious girl, and, although having passed through the mill of social refinement, she was still⁠—thanks to early training⁠—whole hearted and a lover of nature. The wild appealed to her. Since her return from school her every day companions had been the cowboys of the range. With them or alone, she took many a thrilling dash on the back of a Wanawish,2 across the low swelling plains or among the buttes and coulees of the broken uplands. Fond of books, the best authors claimed her attention when she was not riding or helping with the routine work of the house.

Cogewea was liked by all the rangers. She was close to their rough natures, for had she not been nurtured by the same elements? She commanded their respect as but few women of her blood could command it. While ready to die for her, they knew the demarcation between harmless friendship and gross familiarity. She understood the “beast” in man and how to subdue it with the same daring confidence which had characterized her younger days of mountain riding.

The sun dipped lower, as Cogewea, gazing out over the undulating hills to the west, dreamed on. What had the future in store for her? What would it bring? Would it, through her, illuminate the pathway of others? Could she fill any sphere of usefulness; or would she, like the race whose hue she had inherited, be brushed aside, crushed and defeated by the cold dictates of the “superior” earth-lords? She had struggled hard to equip herself for a useful career, but seemingly there was but one trail for her⁠—that of mediocrity and obscurity. Regarded with suspicion by the Indian; shunned by the Caucasian; where was there any place for the despised breed!

The girl’s reveries were broken as the range riders burst into view over a distant swell. She saw them thrown into sharp silhouette against the sun, leaving its last crimson touch to plain and the beautiful Pend d’Oreille, as its blue waters swept southward around the Horseshoe, from which the ranch derived its name. She thought of the canoe which ruffled its bosom no more.