But her spirit of _camaraderie_, her good fellowship, her courage, quite aside from her personal charm, had now begun to impress me.
"Madam," said I, feeling in my pocket; "no heathen has much of this world's goods.

All my possessions would not furnish one of these rooms.
I can not offer gems, as does Senor Yturrio--but, would this be of service--until to-morrow?
That will leave him and me with a slipper each.

It is with reluctance I pledge to return mine!" By chance I had felt in my pocket a little object which I had placed there that very day for quite another purpose.

It was only a little trinket of Indian manufacture, which I had intended to give Elisabeth that very evening; a sort of cloak clasp, originally made as an Indian blanket fastening, with two round discs ground out of shells and connected by beaded thongs.

I had got it among the tribes of the far upper plains, who doubtless obtained the shells, in their strange savage barter, in some way from the tribes of Florida or Texas, who sometimes trafficked in shells which found their way as far north as the Saskatchewan.