"No, he will not. Oonomoo has never accepted a reward for his services and never will. Presents and mementoes have been showered upon him, but his proud soul scorns anything like payment for his services. Do you suppose that I could ever remunerate him for the happiness he has brought me?" asked the Lieutenant, pressing the hand of his beloved.
"I am sure my joy is very great, too. Oh! how my dear mother and sister must have agonized over this calamity."
"They probably have known nothing of it."
"But you say you saw the light of the fire, and you were fully as far off as they."
"It is true, but I had not the remotest suspicion of its being your home. It seems unlikely that your mother should have suspected the truth, as she had every reason to believe the Indians were friendly to your family."
"They must have seen the illumination in the sky, and, knowing the location of our home so well, they could but have their worst apprehensions aroused."
"If such indeed be the case, let us congratulate ourselves that we are so soon to undeceive them."
"I am glad that father cannot possibly hear of this until he is assured of our safety."
"I am not so sure of that. When I left, the chances were that he might follow me almost immediately on a visit to the block-house at the settlement, and from what I heard I am pretty certain that if he has not already been, he soon will be appointed to the command of the garrison at that place. It is not at all impossible that he may be in charge of it this very minute."
"We will reach there to-morrow, when, as you said, their anxiety will be relieved, although it will be no trifling loss to father when he finds his house and all his possessions destroyed by the savages."