"Who can that be, I should like to know?"
"She is the daughter, or is claimed to be, of an old Indian chief, called Wenongonet, who lives up the lakes, and was once a man of some consequence, both with Indians and whites."
"An Indian girl! Fudge!"
"You might alter that tune, if you should see her. She is white as you are, and has, most of the time, of late years, lived in some of the old settlements, been schooled, and so on. I saw her, soon after we came here, with another woman, at the south end of the lake, where she was visiting in the family of one of the settlers, and I inquired her out, as she appeared so much above the common run of girls. But she is courted, they say, by a young educated Indian, called Tomah, from Connecticut-river way, where I used to see him. He ought to be able to take care of her. But hark! what was that? It sounded like the trotting of some heavy horse. I'll see."
So saying, Gaut rose and went to the window, when, after casting a searching look out into the road, and pausing a moment, in evident doubt and surprise at what met his gaze, he muttered: "The devil is always at hand when you are talking about him; for that must be the very fellow,—Tomah himself! But what a rig-out! Wife, look here."
The woman promptly came to the window, when her eyes were greeted with the appearance of a smart-looking and jauntily-equipped young Indian, mounted on the back of a stately, antlered moose, that, by some contrivance answering to a bridle, he was about bringing to a stand in the road, opposite to the house. Without heeding the exclamations of surprise and questions of his wife, who had never seen an animal of the kind, Gaut stepped out of the door, and, after pausing long enough to satisfy himself that he was not known to the other, said, after the distant greeting customary among strangers had been exchanged:
"That is a strange horse you are travelling on, friend."
"No matter that, when he carry you well," replied the Indian, whose language was a little idiomatic, notwithstanding his education.
"Perhaps not; but I should think he would be a hard trotter for most riders."
"Moose don't care for that: he say, he carry you ten miles an hour, you not the one to complain: if you no like, you no ride."