The girl looked up in his face. His words had fallen dead, but the tone in which they were spoken reached her heart.
"You can tell me where they are," she said softly, but very earnestly.
"Where they are," repeated Isidore. "Ah, well. Do you mean your father or your kindred?"
"Tsawanhonhi is in the happy hunting grounds—Amoahmeh knows that," answered the girl, quietly yet firmly. "Yes, and Wacontah is with him—I know that too. But—but the little ones, Tanondah and Tsarahes, my brothers—where are they? Oh! who will tell me where they are?"
Isidore was silent. "I suppose," thought he, "these must be the little ones that she has loved and lost; Pritchard said something of her friends having been all killed."
He looked at her sorrowfully, for the eager, inquiring face troubled him, he scarce knew why.
"The pale faces know what the Great Spirit says about all things. Will the young brave hide this from poor Amoahmeh?" said she with a yet more wistful look.
"Now what is this fellow Pritchard," said Isidore to himself, "or what am I, ay, or what is even Monseigneur the Archbishop for that matter, that we should take upon ourselves to say what a loving Father in His wisdom may choose to do with these red skins after they leave this world?"
"My good girl," he blurted out, after a short pause, "the Great Spirit has taken your little brothers, and keeps them safe enough in a place that He has made on purpose for them. The Great Spirit is a good Spirit, and you may be quite sure that He would not hurt your little brothers. You have found trouble and sorrow enough already in this world to enable you to believe that the poor little fellows may be all the better for being taken out of it."
"Ah, yes!" replied Amoahmeh, looking gratefully up in the young soldier's face, "I was sure the pale face knew where they were. But," she added earnestly, "can he tell me whether I shall see them again?"