“I meant to come every time after this to meet the boats. Oh, you are alive! The fierce Indians have not killed you.”
How her voice trembled with emotion, and her hands were clasped tight about his arm!
“They have not had much chance.” How good it was to hear the old cheerful laugh. “And Wawataysee is safe, as well? Did Marchand recover? I have heard no news of the dear old town, but of you I heard long ago, and it made my heart as light as a bird mounting up to the sky. Perhaps it will please even your gentle heart to know that Black Feather, the treacherous Indian chief, is dead. You see, I hardly knew which direction to take and went wrong several times. Then I heard Elk Horn had sold some female captives to Black Feather, who had taken them up the Illinois River. When I reached an encampment where there had been a terrific storm I heard Black Feather had been seriously injured and had finally been moved to an interior encampment, where there was a medicine man. So, after a search, I found them. In spite of the medicine man the chief had died, and they had given him a grand funeral. His followers had dispersed. But I was told that, after the storm, some captives had escaped and he had been so angry he had two Indians put to death. So then I retraced my steps. Many a time I wondered if I should find you in the forests, dead from hunger and fatigue. Whether you had gone down the river—but you could not do that, unless some friendly boat had offered. I passed some lodges where they had not known of any wanderers, and at last met two Peoria Indians, who said the three escaped captives had reached them and been taken to St. Louis.”
He pressed the child closer, looked down in the fond, eager eyes that were shaded in a mist of emotion, and felt the eager grasp of the small hand. How much she cared, this motherless and well-nigh fatherless girl.
“It was Wawataysee they wanted, but your fate might have been as bad. They might have left you somewhere to starve—” Yet did not the pretty child’s face give evidence of coming beauty? only to an Indian this was not the rich, appealing beauty of his own tribes. And the present was so much to the red man, the triumphs, satisfactions, joys and revenges of to-day.
“Oh,” she said, with a long, quivering breath, “I am so glad! so glad! It runs all over me,” and she laughed softly. “And you will never go away again? They are building the wall all around the town and putting sharp-pointed sticks through the top. The children do not go out on the prairies any more; they are afraid.”
“I do not think we are in much danger. Farther to the east the Indians are joining tribes, stirred up by the English fighting the colonists. But we have nothing to do with their quarrels. And this attack was a mortification to them. Few, if any, of our friendly Indians were concerned in it. Oh, little one, thank God that you and Wawataysee are safe.”
“But M. Marchand thanks God for Wawataysee!” she said, with a touch of resentment.
He smiled at that. When she was older she would demand every thought of one’s heart.
“Shall we go down now?”