Chapter Five.
The Maiden’s Story.
Not long had Oowikapun to wait, for soon emerged from among the young balsam trees a fair Indian maiden with a number of snow-white ptarmigan and a few rabbits, which had rewarded her skill and enterprise as a successful huntress in coming so far from the village to set her snares. She was taller than most Indian maidens, and her eyes were bright and fearless. She stepped into the trail and turned her face homeward, but gave a sudden start, as, lifting up her eyes, she found herself almost face to face with Oowikapun. Quickly regaining her composure, she threw her game over her back, in the Indian woman’s style of carrying loads; and with the natural Indian womanly modesty seemed anxious to at once go on. In all probability not a word would have passed between them. As it happened, however, just at the moment when the maiden swung her load of game over her pack, the shawl she was wearing fell back for an instant from her arm, and on it Oowikapun’s quick eye detected the beautiful bracelet that he had seen that morning on the arm that had closed the door of his little lodge.
This discovery filled him with curiosity, and he resolved to find out who she was, and why she had shown him, a stranger, so much kindness. But the difficulty was how to begin. His Indian training told him it would be a breach of decorum to speak to her; but so great was his anxiety to find the solution of what was a mystery even to the villagers themselves, that he felt he must not let the opportunity pass by. Man’s bluntness is his own poor substitute for woman’s superior tact, and so as she was about to pass he said: “Have I not seen that beautiful bracelet before?”
He tried to speak kindly, but he was excited and fearful that she would be gone, and so his voice sounded harsh and stern, and it startled her, and her face flushed a little; yet she quickly regained her composure, and then quietly said: “It was made years ago, so you have seen it before.”
“Was it not on the arm of the friend who made the fire and prepared the food and brought the clothing for the poor, foolish stranger?” he asked.
She raised her piercing black eyes to his, as though she would look into his soul, and said, without hesitancy: “Yes, it was; and Oowikapun was indeed foolish, if not worse.”
Startled and confounded at this reply, given in such decided tones by this maiden, Oowikapun, in spite of all his efforts to appear unmoved, felt abashed before her, and his eyes fell under her searching gaze.
Recovering himself as well as he could, he said: “Will the fair maiden please tell me what she means?”