“Tell ye what, colonel,” he said; “that gal is the right grit. She totes a true heart and a stout one. She was born to be a queen—that’s whar it is.”
The journey was accomplished safely and pleasantly, the party being too large to fear interruption by the Indians. When they reached the rendezvous, Kate Robinette was made known to her sister Flora, who had previously, during her captivity among the Arapahoes, considered and treated her as a sister. When she learned that her Indian sister was really her own elder sister, her joy was unbounded, and her affection displaced itself in all manner of extravagant demonstrations.
When Colonel Wilder saw Kate Robinette laughed over and cried over by her sister, who was undoubtedly white, and who called Bad Eye “uncle” as naturally as if he had not been a Crow chief, he began to doubt whether Dove-eye did not have white blood in her veins, and soon came to the conclusion that she was all white. Thereafter he addressed her as “Kate” and “Miss Robinette,” and was as courteous to her as if she had been a fashionable damsel fresh from the “settlements.”
“Now that sister Kate is found,” said Flora, when everybody had got over the novelty of the discovery, “it is time that we should devise a plan by which I can divide father’s property with her. I have no doubt that he would have divided it, if he had known that she was alive, and I am sure that there is enough for both of us. Besides, she is the eldest child, and has the best right to it.”
“There is no necessity for any division,” remarked Bad Eye. “You need not suppose that I, a white man, and a trader by education, have lived so many years among the Crows without making some use of the advantages of my position. On the contrary, I have had a splendid opportunity to amass a fortune, and have not entirely neglected it. I have trapped and traded until I have laid by a considerable sum, part of which is in the hands of Captain Benning, and the rest is mostly in St Louis. I intend that Kate shall have it all, and she will find, when it is gathered together, that she is not much behind her sister.”
It could not be that Colonel Wilder was influenced by the discovery that Kate Robinette was an heiress. He had a great respect for wealth and position, but was no worshiper of property. It is certain, however, not only that his demeanor toward her entirely changed, but that he really gave his consent to her marriage with Fred.
“That is, my son,” he proceeded to qualify, “after you have taken her to the East and kept her at school a few years. Education will soon polish her.”
“Do you think I could allow the ducks and turkeys of the settlements to laugh at my wild bird?” asked Silverspur. “Do you think I could be separated from her a few years, or a few months? She is sufficiently polished, and no one can educate her better than her husband.”
Fred had his way, and was married to Kate Robinette, without objection by any person. He entered into a partnership with Captain Benning as a fur trader, in which business both were remarkably successful. Kate’s brains and will soon made amends for the deficiencies of her education, and, when she accompanied her husband to St. Louis, no one who was not acquainted with her story would have supposed that the greater part of her life had been spent among savages.