Kashaqua pointed toward the distant range of mountains which they had left behind them. “He gone home,” she said.
Kashaqua told her how to step into the canoe, and how to sit, and cautioned her not to move. Faith felt as if the day had been a wonderful dream. As Kashaqua with swift strokes of her paddle sent the canoe over the water Faith sat silent, with eyes fixed on the looming battlements of the fort, on the high mountain behind it, and thought to herself that no other little girl had ever taken such a journey.
Kashaqua landed some distance below the fort; the canoe was again safely hidden, and after a short walk across a field they reached a broad, well-traveled road. “’Most to Philip Scott’s house,” grunted Kashaqua. “You be glad?” and she looked down at the little girl with a friendly smile.
CHAPTER VII
NEW FRIENDS
“An Indian woman and a little girl with yellow hair are coming across the road, mother,” declared Donald Scott, rushing into the sitting-room, where his mother was busy with her sewing.
Mrs. Scott hastened to the front door. “Oh, Aunt Prissy,” called Faith, running as fast as her tired feet could carry her, and hardly seeing the brown-haired little cousin standing by his mother’s side.
Aunt Prissy welcomed her little niece, whom she had not expected to see for weeks to come, and then turned to thank Kashaqua. But the Indian woman had disappeared. The bundle containing Faith’s clothing lay on the door-step, but there was no trace of her companion. Long afterward they discovered that Kashaqua had started directly back over the trail, and had reached the Carews’ cabin, with her message of Faith’s safe arrival at her aunt’s house, early the next morning.