Thendara

Motionless, intent, holding my breath, I listened at the paneled wall. Through the wainscot I could hear the low rustling of paper; and I seemed to sense some heavier movement within, though the solid floor did not creak, nor a window quiver, nor a footfall sound.

And now my eyes began traveling cautiously over the paneled wall, against which I had laid my ear. No crack or seam indicated a hidden door, yet I knew there must be one, and gently pressed the wainscot with my shoulder. It gave, almost imperceptibly; I pressed again, and the hidden door opened a hair's breadth, a finger's breadth, an inch, widening, widening noiselessly; and I bent forward and peered into another closet like the one I stood in, also lighted by a loop for rifle-fire. As my head advanced, first a corner of the floor littered with papers came into my range of vision, then an angle of the wall, then a shadowy something which I could not at first make out--and I opened the door a little wider--scarcely an inch--holding it there.

The shadowy something moved; it was a human foot; and the next instant my eyes fell on a figure, partly in shade, partly in the light from the loophole--an Indian, kneeling, absorbed in deciphering a document held flat on the bare floor.

Astounded, almost incredulous, I glared at the vision. Gradually the shock of the surprise subsided; details took shape under my wondering eyes--the slim legs, doubled under, clothed with fringed and beaded leggings to the hips, the gorgeously embroidered sporran, moccasins, and clout, the smooth, naked back, gleaming like palest amber under curtains of stiffly strung scarlet-and-gold traders' wampum--traders' wampum? What did that mean? And what did those heavy, double masses of hair indicate--those soft, twisted ropes of glossy hair, braided half-way with crimson silk shot with silver, then hanging a cloudy shock of black to the belted waist?