STRAWBERRY VALLEY CAMP
“My hammock swung under the centuried pines of Strawberry Valley.”

A moment more, and the figure stood out, distinct as the clear lines of the landscape—a woman having the dark copper skin and the gleaming eyes of the Indian race, but with the height and bearing of the stateliest Caucasian. Her long blanket of scarlet and white hung trailing from her shoulder. Scarlet cords were around her wrists and ankles. A glittering chain of shells and nuggets encircled her neck, and a single massive nugget shone in her long, black hair which was held in place by a scarlet band. She raised her arm in a gesture, perhaps of silence. The hand was large and perfect and the arm well moulded. She looked at me a moment and then spoke.

“I am the Tahquitch Maiden. My people have many legends regarding me, but no Red man has seen my form nor heard my voice since the day I disappeared from yonder valley. For many generations I have dwelt upon the peak named for the Evil Spirit, whom my Indian kin believe I serve. Often I have yearned to tell the story of my fate—a fate so strange that none have guessed aright its cause and meaning. Often I have left my rocky fortress to hover near to them who seemed of mind and spirit like my own. But I have sought their comradeship in vain. In a long round of years, once only am I seen or may I speak. Whenever, upon the anniversary of the last night of my stay among my people, another golden moon lights up these scenes of beauty, if any wander near these mountain heights, whose hearts believe in truth and fortitude and noble love; if, unsleeping, they have watched throughout the hours which mark the time when last I suffered among mortals—to them I may appear and tell in language of their own my story.

“This is the fateful night. For many scores of years no other has been like it; and no one lives whose heart has heard my story.”

The maiden paused, and turned her face toward the mists of Tahquitch Mountain. I held my breath in silence, but my gaze followed hers. The distant peaks remained wrapped in clouds, which seemed too dense for sun ever to lighten.

“Until they melt away,” she said, following my thought, “none call me to return.”

Then she began her story.

“My father was the chief of a noble tribe, now vanished from the earth, then filling the valley named for its burden of wild strawberry. My mother was a maiden of a tribe removed from here, far to the east—perhaps a tribe of your own race. At least she differed much from my father’s people in face and form and mind. I have heard few words regarding her, and my memory of her grace and beauty is but the memory of a child. Of gentle heart she must have been, and my father, a stern, strong warrior among warlike men, made her his idol.

“I was an only child, and I grew up as other Indian children, with few events to make my years remembered. By my mother I was fondly loved; my father gave me little care or notice. Nothing stands clear in my past until one day, while I was still a child, there came a great change in my life. My father, with many stalwart braves, had gone upon a bloody expedition against a powerful foe some distance to the south, leaving behind a small band of men to guard our camp. These set out one morning to hunt the deer which then, more fearlessly than now, roamed over the neighboring hills. At nightfall they had not returned, nor did they ever come.

“All that day, haunted by a prophecy of evil, my mother wandered pale and anxious about the camp. The stolid Indian women, themselves unmoved by threat of danger, grumbled together at her restlessness and fear, but to her they said no word. As the afternoon wore away she could control herself no longer. Taking my hand she led me into the little teepee which, contrary to the custom of Indian men, my father had built for her with his own hands, beside the valley stream.

“When we were alone and sheltered from the gaze of her hard-faced companions, she took me in her arms and threw herself with me upon her couch of skins. Then she wept. I, who had never seen a man or woman weep, was filled with a strange, wild fear. I struggled in her arms, and when her tight clasp forced me to lie still, I lay panting with fright. Soon, seeing my terror, she checked her sobs and stroked my long shining hair until my fears were hushed. Then she said:

“‘Child, you are of your father’s mould and spirit. You will become his pride and joy, as I have been his love. Something tells me that soon I shall go far from you, into another land, among another people. You will know little of your mother’s life or love; for death will seal her lips, and pride and love and grief your father’s. Her kindred will be strangers to you, for they are far distant from this place and people, and when she left them to follow one she better loved, they ceased to speak, perhaps to think of her. Yet they are noble and true and tender, and sometime they will bring to you, perhaps, sympathy more than your father’s race can give. But this is not the thing I long to say. I would leave with you another message straight from your mother’s heart.

“‘Love fills the measure of a woman’s life. Fear not to take and give. But when suitors come to you from this and other tribes, choose from them not at all or else choose worthily. Rank, possessions, power are glittering ornaments, but look not long on them. Let your heart rest on him whose soul meets yours and at its best.’

“That night our camp was entered by the stealthy foe who had surprised and killed our band of hunters. My mother slew with her own hands the dark-faced warrior who had rushed into our tent to take me captive. She in turn was pierced by the poisoned arrow of another of the enemy. At midnight she lay dead.

“Before the first glow of another sunrise had touched yon peak, my father returned laden with spoils from a vanquished foe. But his chant of victory was changed to wailing. All that day he mourned alone; but when midnight came again, he summoned all his people, and, with solemn dance and dirge, they buried my mother beside the stream where she had dwelt. Then he wreaked upon the enemy who had despoiled his home, vengeance unspeakable.

“After my mother’s death my father’s heart was turned toward me. I became his frequent companion. Near the spot where my mother’s teepee once stood, one was reared for me. Indian maidens waited upon me to do my bidding. Indian youths brought gifts from the forest and the sea. As I grew into womanhood, I kept my mother’s skill and quickness; I was like her, too, in form and bearing. But I was like my father in my dark face and hair and, most of all, in my unconquerable spirit. As my mother had predicted, I became his pride and joy. Braves from our own tribe sought my hand, but I gave no sign of pleasure; and for a time my father seemed content. At length my haughty beauty was known outside my people, and dark-browed warriors came from other tribes to win my favor. Some brought gifts of skins and shells, gold, woven blankets, and trophies of their strifes, and lay them at my feet. Some performed before me feats of skill or of endurance; some boasted their rank and power. When they told my father of their gifts or asked him for my hand, at first he smoked in silence. Then, when many went away unsatisfied or displeased, he turned questioningly to me.

“‘What would you have?’ he asked, and a gleam of anger showed itself in his dark face.

“‘I would have the one I choose, as strong and brave as these,’ I answered proudly, ‘but something more. No one of these has touched my heart. They are all selfish and untrue. Something tells me to choose no one among them.’

“This I said truly; but more than spoken cause was the remembrance of my mother’s words, ‘Set your heart on him whose soul meets yours and at its best.’“My father uttered only the grim ‘Ugh!’ which meant, I knew, a latent wrath; and for the first time I was touched with a vague uneasiness.

“Soon other suitors came and went. I grew at length anxious and unhappy. When would a lover come whose soul was true, whose heart moved mine? My father made me daily less his companion. At last, when a young chief from the most powerful of our neighboring tribes, offering his gifts in vain, turned wrathfully away, my father looked at me a moment in dark displeasure. Then he led me to the mighty oak which grew upon the outskirts of our camp. It was the Tree of Judgment, and underneath its spreading boughs had many a trembling victim heard his direful sentence.

“‘No maiden of our tribe has lived unwedded,’ he began. ‘You shall not disgrace me nor my people. Other maidens are given, without wish of their own, by chief or parent to whom these will. You are the daughter of a chief. To you I grant the gift of choosing; but choose you must. Though you were ten times worthy; though your beauty moved the gods above,—one from the mortals who seek your hand you still shall wed. Or, if you fail, in three moons you shall die.’

“He said, but his words fell upon a heart as proud as his; a will as strong as his to do or to endure. Yet I loved life, and longed, too, with all a maiden’s fervor, for a heart which should control my own. The days went on, and no one appeared whom I could love and trust. The warriors and maidens of our tribe perceived my father’s anger and held me in contempt. Those who had served me ceased to do my bidding. Old women turned hard faces toward me and muttered curses whenever I went near them. But my will was still unconquered and my pride unbent. Like a queen I moved among the petty beings whom once I had ruled. My father no longer looked upon me. My heart yearned for his love but I could not speak; I would not yield. No human being praised, nor gave me words of sympathy, save one alone.