The girl nodded slowly. “You are very good,” she said.
Jack shrugged away her comment. “I didn’t know where you were going,” he insinuated, “or how you came to be where you were, but I couldn’t stop, and of course I couldn’t leave you, so I just bundled you into the wagon and brought you along. I was bound for Wapakoneta but I’ve had to turn off to Fort Wayne instead, so that’s where we’re going. I hope it meets your approval.” He ended with a smile.
The girl understood that she was being questioned. She had determined what to say and she answered quickly, in fairly good English, noticing that Williams was listening as she spoke. “I come from Wapakoneta!”
Jack stared. “You mean you lived there with the Indians?”
“For many moons I have lived there. I know no other life but that.”
“You were a prisoner?”
“Prisoner! No! Yes! Perhaps you call it so. I think the Shawnees carry me away from somewhere when I am a child. I have lived with them ever since. They were good to me. I travel the long trail south with the chief Wilwiloway when that wicked white man kill him.”
Jack’s face darkened. “It was a brutal murder,” he said, sharply, glancing at Williams. “It shall be punished. But what is your name? Where do your friends live? Where do you want to go?”
The girl shook her head. “I do not know what my name was before I came to the Shawnees,” she answered, slowly. “The Indians call me Bobapanawe.”
“Bobapanawe. That means ‘lightning,’ doesn’t it?” Jack laughed. “It suits you all right, but I’m afraid it’s too much of a mouthful. I’ll call you Bob, if you don’t object. I suppose you don’t know anything about your friends?”