The smaller of the two buildings evidently served as a store. No white men were visible about its entrance, but through the open door the newcomers could see an Indian woman behind the counter and a dozen blanketed Indians patiently waiting their turn to trade. At the door of the larger building, several white men were sitting, and inside, in the great bar room, Jack could see a dozen more eating at a table made of roughly-hewn planks set on homemade trestles.
Close to the door Madame Fantine paused. “You will want to wash, yes?” she questioned, waving her hands toward the basins.
Jack nodded. “Glad to!” he declared.
“It is all yours, monsieur. It is not what you are accustomed to, but on the frontier—What would you, monsieur? For the table—ah! but, messieurs, there you shall live well. I go to prepare for you the dishes of la belle France.”
She turned away, then stopped. “Ah! But I forget!” she exclaimed. “Le pauvre garcon has the fatigue, yes,” she turned to Alagwa. “Come with me, jeune monsieur,” she said; “and you shall rest. Oh! but it is that you remind me of my own son, he who has gone to the blessed angels. Come!” Without waiting for comment the big French woman threw her arm around Alagwa’s shoulders and hurried her into the house, past the eating men, who regarded her not at all, and on into another room.
There she turned on the girl, holding out her arms. “Ah! Ma petite fille!” she cried. “Think you Fantine did not know you when you looked at her out of the face of that dear, dead Monsieur Delaroche. Have I hold you in my arms when you were the one small bebée to forget you now. Ah! non! non! non! Ah! But the men are of a blindness. The wise young man he search, search, and not know he have found already.”
Alagwa’s heart melted. Suddenly she realized the strain under which she had been for the last four days. With a sob of relief she slipped into the French woman’s arms and wept her heart out on the latter’s motherly bosom.
The latter soothed her gently. “There! There! Pauvre bebée,” she murmured. “Fear not! All will be right. But what has happened that you are thus?” She glanced at the girl’s masculine attire. “Ah! But it must be the great tale. Tell Fantine about it. Tell your old nurse, who adores you!”
Between sobs Alagwa obeyed, pouring out the tale of all that had befallen her since the day when Captain Brito had sought her out. She held back only the real object with which she had come into the American lines. “Tecumseh sent me to find the young white chief from the far south,” she ended.
“But, ma cherie,” the French woman interrupted. “Have you not found him? Why do you not tell him who you are?”