23, 



stole out of the schoolyard gate 

 and sped along the road to the rail- 

 way station. The west-bound train 

 passed an hour before, so the place 

 was deserted, and Arabella Horse- 

 tail crossed the tracks unobserved 

 and away up the hill, where a turn 

 in the road hid her from sight of the 

 tiny settlement, which the Whiteman 

 calls Crow Agency. On sped the 

 flying feet over the pathless arid 

 waste to a group of trees a mile away, 

 the only ones in sight. They marked 

 a sudden crack in the ground, as 

 though God had scooped out the 

 place with His finger that some 

 green thing might find moisture, 

 and live. Six trees only had dared 

 to rear themselves in this gully, and 

 their shapes could be seen from afar, 

 the more so as strange objects marred 

 the symmetry of their outline 

 oblong shaped bundles of bright 

 coloured blankets, wound from end 

 to end with buckskin thongs and 

 securely strapped to the branches; 

 for these were the Manakes-ees, the 

 trees of the Absaroka dead. 



The girl sped to the last lone tree, 

 where memory said, her mother had 



