All-Story Weekly, Vol. 112, No. 1 — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE ONE GIFT. * “ This I have always loved,’ she went on, and she indicated her surroundings. “Tt would be wonderful to live this way always.” What she said disconcerted him. He lacked an immediate response. He turned his head for a time and looked away—while she studied the strength and delicacy of his profile. He was no darker than many a white man of her acquaintance who spent much of his time in the open air—the golfers, fishermen, the men of motors, dogs, and ‘horses. - Without a word, Blue Otter arose from his place at her feet. He went over to the thicket on the edge of the slough. There was a cluster of orchids growing there, on a cypress trunk. The flowers were pinkish- white, finely fragrant. He brought the cluster back and laid them on her breast. She smiled up at him. She brought the flowers close to her face and smelled them. But this answer of his brought a tremor to her breast. The tremor quickened when he spoke: “You would always?” “ Like this,” she said—meaning, perhaps, to play at life, to live like children. It is more than likely that Blue Otter divined her thought, whatever it was. Muriel Sangree felt that this was so. Each time he loeked at her she ‘felt as if she stood revealed, utterly, to the very soul of her. It was only he who remained inscru- table. “You are LEeti-Okholattee,’ he said, softly. . “ Feti-Okholatiee?”’ ‘“‘ Eyes Blue! I have given you a name.” ‘“‘ How romantic! Then I am a Seminole almost already.” : “The color of your eyes is the color of the sky. The sound of your voice is like the breathing of the wind and the song of birds. Your presence is of a fragrance and a beauty like that of these flowers.” - “Vou are a poet, Blue Otter. But you should not say these things. You will make me vain.” oe She was pervaded by a slight feeling of panic. And yet the panic was delicious. It brought a wave of added warmth to like—to live here— 27 her cheeks and throat. It brought a mist to her eyes. It was a perfect constraint of Blue Otter that affected her as much as the meaning he made so perfectly clear. His voice was a melancholy, musical mur- mur. Most of his meaning glowed in his eyes. But he held his distance. His dig- nity was perfect. : ‘““T have had a vision,” he announced, “and it was a vision of you and me—Blue Otter and Eyes Blue—going westward— toward the Big Country—living ever in surroundings such as these.” ‘“ But—but—this cannot be.” “Tt could be.” “No. How—”’ ‘“ Hesukatemeesee—the Great Spirit—he has granted it.”’ “ Blue Otter! I do not understand.” But she understood, ail right. ‘“‘T have the power.” . ‘ Of course, you have the power—” She faltered again. She felt as if the scent of the orchids were mounting to her head. ‘The power of the one gift.” ‘The one gift?” “The one thing that I most yearn—for I am of the line of the medicine people of my race, and this has been granted to them —the one thing that I most yearn and de- mand of the Father-Ghost—that gift will I receive from His ‘hands.”’ There, for a time, it seemed almost—to Muriel Sangree herself it seemed almost— as if Blue Otter had already demanded this one boon of his Creator and that the boon had been granted to him. The frag- rance, the warmth, the food, and the shelter —all these things that the swamp had given her were as orators appealing to her physi- cal self. The mystery of the jungle and the mystery of this man, and the beauty of both of these, were making a yet subtler but more powerful appeal to her imagina- tion. Deeper than all this was the appeal that was atavistic. How many millions of gener- ations of her ancestors had lived in sur- roundings such as these—in steamy fens, warm. islets newly born, tropic jungles? Why not? Why not? The whisper was persistent. Then, through the brooding silence that COMICOooe SS C©