At last he stirred, saying dully, “Her body—perhaps they will have left me that—-”
“No, no,” said Granny in startled haste, “not even that. You see”—she had need to think rapidly—“they—they dragged Polly down to the river, she struggling every step of the way, calling on your name, cursing them—no, no, not cursing!—what am I thinking of? That was another child of mine, her father.” She passed a distracted hand over her brow. “But, anyway, ’twas there they had killed her, Ezra, because she—she wouldn’t get into the canoe, you see, they could not force her away from you. Ah, a grand fight she made of it! And so they—they did the thing, and cast her body into the river. ’Tis a swift water, son. She’ll be far from this by now, drifting who knows where—who knows where?”
The man’s head fell upon his breast. It did not occur to him to ask further questions, to wonder how the woman could have seen so much, bound as she was, and through a closed door.
In the silence that followed, the baby awoke and cried.
“God be praised!” gasped Granny. “He is alive then, alive! I have not dared to ask, or to look. So still he was—-”
“Like his mother,” said Ezra. He went to the cradle and stood gazing, his face a-quiver. Suddenly he stooped and took something out of the baby’s clenched fist; a long, gray feather. “What is this?” he asked, dully.
Granny started. The Indian, then had left his sign, his warning! But she managed to answer, carelessly:
“Oh, that? Why, he must have pulled it out of his mother’s feather duster, strong little man that he is! Come, Ezra, make up the fire, son. ’Tis time for the child’s nursing bottle.”
For Mistress Estill, builder of empire, had little energy left to waste on grief.
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 1923 issue of McClure’s Magazine.