“I will come back, trust me I will. How and when it is impossible for me to say; but, rest certain, we shall meet again, and that for good to us both.”
“But soon—oh, tell me that it will be soon.”
“I cannot say; these are wild times on the frontier, and worse may be expected; but if danger comes I shall not be far from you; rest sure of that.”
Mary looked—oh, so wistfully—into the lady’s face.
“And will there be danger for you?”
“None, child! but you and the inhabitants of this valley will be forever in peril. Stay, put back the sleeve from your arm, undo this bracelet, a gleam of moonlight strikes the spring just here—so!”
As she spoke, Mary touched the clasp pointed out, and directly one of the serpent bracelets uncoiled from Catharine’s wrist, as if it had been a living thing, and she wound it on Mary’s arm, above the elbow, shutting the spring with a noise that sounded like a hiss.
“It will guard you,” she said, eagerly. “There is not a Shawnee savage who does not hold that sign sacred, nor one among the Six Tribes who will not protect its wearer—keep it on your arm night and day, till we meet again.
“I came here to learn all that relates to your sister’s acquaintance with Walter Butler, to warn her of the peril which will surely follow her reckless daring, if she even sees him or speaks with him again; but somehow you have led my thoughts far from the subject, and there is no time for much that I intended to say. But I have no fear that, under your influence, this girl can wrong my daughter.”
Before Mary could speak, a long kiss was pressed on her forehead—a rustling of the branches as they swayed to their places, and she was alone—more alone than she had ever been in her life.