Gathering some wood, the trapper soon had a large place cleared from snow, and a fire was quickly kindled, in the fierce heat of which some of their slices of steaks were held a few minutes then given to the famished woman. Eagerly seizing them she held one to the mouth of the child, when it seized it and commenced sucking the juicy food with great voracity, while the rest disappeared with a rapidity that astonished even the chief, who was so rarely astonished at anything.
"I would like to know who she is and where she came from," said Howe. "Ask her if you can make her understand."
But she could not understand them, nor could they her. She told them by signs that she had been wandering a long while and could not find her home, and begged them not to leave her there to die.
"That we will not, chief; you stay with the woman and I will take a load of venison home and return with the colt for the woman to ride on, for she is too weak to travel."
The squaw looked her thanks while she pressed her child to her bosom as if she would "say we shall still live perhaps to see home and kindred when the snows melt from the hills."
Chapter Thirteenth.
Jane's reception of the Indian woman. Whirlwind's indifference. Condition of the party. Sidney begins to use his broken arm. Their health. They cannot calculate the day nor month. The chief imagines he has found the locality of the Arapahoes hunting grounds. He becomes enamored of Jane. The party troubled about it. Howe explains his experience in love matters. A reconnoitre suggested. Edward joins them. Deer chased by a wild man. The chief lassoes him. A desperate struggle. The wild man captured and taken into camp. Things in the camp, &c.
The young mother and her babe received a warm welcome from Jane, whose tender heart ached as she scanned the half frozen, emaciated beings before her; and even repining Sidney was forced to acknowledge that his sufferings had been nothing in comparison to those the mother and babe had endured. A few weeks spent under the hands of their gentle nurse had a wonderful effect in their condition, and the babe, especially, had regained its infantile merriment, and played at rough and tumble on the soft skins before the fire like any other child of two years, as the squaw reckoned its age. It was very lively and frolicsome, and served to make merry many an hour that otherwise would have lagged heavily on their hands. Not so its mother; she had regained her strength, but no effort could bring back the smile to her lip or chase the look of sadness from her brow. She had, from the first, exhibited great signs of fear of the chief, and did she catch his eye resting on her she would hurriedly gather her child in her arms, and with a wild look of terror cower away into the corner of the room farthest from him she could get, and there sit murmuring in wailing tones to the babe nestling in her arms.
The chief, after the first day of her rescue, exhibited perfect indifference to her presence, and rarely gave her a glance; but they had noticed that when his eye did rest on her or the child it had a peculiar exulting savage glitter seen at no other times, for his eye usually had a mild expression, and they had known him to exhibit disinterested humane acts that set at defiance the supposition that he was devoid of sensibility.