“Come, Susie, come with me.”
She followed him outside, where he unbuckled his saddle-pocket and took a daguerreotype from a wooden box which had come in the mail. The gilt frame was tarnished, the purple velvet lining faded, and when he handed the case to Susie she had to hold it slanting in the light to see the picture.
“Dad!”
She looked at McArthur with eyes wide in wonder.
“Donald MacDonald, my aunt Harriet’s brother, who went north to buy furs for the Hudson Bay Company!” McArthur’s eyes were smiling through the moisture in them.
“We’ve got one just like it!” Susie cried, still half unable to believe her eyes and ears.
“I was sure that day you mimicked your father when he said, ‘Never forget you are a MacDonald!’ for I have heard my aunt say that a thousand times, and in just that way. But I wanted to be surer before I said anything to you, so I sent for this.”
“Oh, pardner!” and with a sudden impulse which was neither Scotch nor Indian, but entirely of herself, Susie threw her arms about his neck and all but choked him in the only hug which Peter McArthur, A.M., Ph.D., could remember ever having had.