SUSIE’S INDIAN BLOOD
Coming leisurely up the path from the corrals, Smith saw Susie sitting on the cottonwood log, wrapped in her mother’s blanket. She was huddled in a squaw’s attitude. He eyed her; he never had seen her like that before. But, knowing Indians better, possibly, than he knew his own race, Smith understood. He recognized the mood. Her Indian blood was uppermost. It rose in most half-breeds upon occasion. Sometimes under the influence of liquor it cropped out, sometimes anger brought it to the surface. He had seen it often—this heavy, smouldering sullenness.
Smith stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at her. He felt more at ease with her than ever before.
“What are you sullin’ about, Susie?”
She did not answer. Her pertness, her Anglo-Saxon vivacity, were gone; he
