There was a keen, quick brain behind the dark and lovely eyes, a
faultless knowledge of the courtesies of finer folk. Mic-co had
wrought generously and well. Only the girl's inordinate shyness and
the stern traditions of her tribe, Diane fancied, kept her chained to
her life in the Glades.
Keela, strangely apart from Indian and white man, and granted
unconventional license by her tribe, hungered most for the ways of the
white father of whom she frequently spoke.
Diane learned smoke signals and the blazing and blinding of a trail, an
inexhaustible and tragic fund of tribal history which had been handed
down from mouth to mouth for generations, legends and songs, wailing
dirges and native dances and snatches of the chaste and oathless speech
of the Florida Indian.
"Diane, _dear_!" exclaimed Ann Sherrill one lazy morning, "what in the
_world_ is that exceedingly mournful tune you're humming?"
"That," said Diane, "is the 'Song of the Great Horned Owl,' my clever
little Indian friend taught me. Isn't it plaintive?"
"It is!" said Ann with deep conviction. "_Entirely_ too much so. I
feel creepy. And Nathalie says you did some picturesque dance for her
and your aunt--"
"The 'Dance of the Wild Turkey,'" explained Diane, much amused at the
recollection.
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