“I?” Alagwa drew herself up. For the moment she was once more the Shawnee maiden. “Am I a dog to live among those who hate me?”
“Hate you!” Jack stared. “Good Lord! What are you talking about? Why! Dad would go crazy over you. He’s the best old dad that ever lived. Cato’s already deserted me for you. He’s your sworn slave. He thinks you’re the spirit and image of the Telfair family. By the way, he told me yesterday that you sure did have the Telfair nose. You may not think that’s a compliment, but Cato meant it for one. As for the neighbors——”
Jack stopped short. He had just remembered that for several days he had failed to grieve over Sally Habersham and that he had quite forgotten that his life was blighted. An expression of gloom came over his features.
Alagwa noticed it, but she said nothing. She had been taught not to force her chatter on a warrior, and her experience with white men had been too brief to change the ingrained custom of years. Besides, she was startled by Cato’s remark. Woman-like, she had already discovered the strong family likeness she bore to Jack; and it had pleased rather than troubled her. But Cato’s perception of it made her anxious. If he noticed it, others might do so and might grow suspicious; her identity might be detected, and if it was, her mission would fail.
Before Jack could notice her abstraction the break in the forest came. The trees stopped short, leaning westward as if dragged toward the sunset by some mighty impulse, only to be held back by one yet mightier. To north and to south the line of the forest ran interminably away, till it blended with the long grasses that swelled to meet it.
In front stretched the prairie, mile after mile of billowing green, flower-studded, cobweb-sheeted, ablaze with the painted wings of butterflies. Over it the breeze blew softly, laden with whispers, heavy with the scent of sun-dried grass.
With a gasp both Jack and Alagwa reined in. Then with wild whoops of delight they shook their reins and drove their heels into their horses’ sides and darted forward, out from behind the wagon, over the fresh springy turf.
As they passed, Williams, seated by Cato on the box, leaned forward and hailed them. “We’re near Fort Wayne,” he called. “An’ there’s white men there—none of your d—d Indian lovers. We’ll see what they’ve got to say about your high-handed ways. And”—venomously—“we’ll see what they’ve got to say about that half-breed boy, too.”
Jack did not answer. He scarcely heard. All his thoughts were on the mighty plain that stretched before him. To him, as to Alagwa, the prairie was a revelation. All her life the girl had lived amid forests; all her life her view had been circumscribed by the boles of massive trees. Never had she dreamed of the vast sweep of the grassy plains. Jack’s experience was wider, but even he had never seen the prairies. Like two children they shouted from very rapture. Along the flat they raced, intoxicated with the whistle of the wind, the smell of the grass, and the thunderous drumming of their horses’ hoofs. Mile after mile they galloped, fronting the sunset, fleeing before their own enormously lengthening shadows. When at last they dragged their steeds to a walk, Jack had quite forgotten his gloomy pose and was talking and laughing as excitedly as if he were still the schoolboy he had been so short a time before.
Then suddenly he reined in and rose in his stirrups. The road, curving to the north around a great grassy swell, had come out upon a level at the far edge of which rose a great quadrilateral, with frowning blockhouses at its alternate corners. Under its protecting walls smaller buildings showed where the pioneers of a dauntless race were laying deep the foundations of a mighty state.