“Oh, Roger!” she exclaimed; and for the first time for years he did not turn away from her, but asked,—
“Are you hurt, Loïs?”
She tried to rise. John Cleveland gave her his hand.
“No,” she answered, “I think not; it is their blood,” and she shivered, pointing to her blood-stained garments.
“Alpha Marsh is uninjured; we are going to carry Father Nat there.”
“And she?” said Loïs, looking down at Nadjii.
“If you wish it,” answered Roger, turning away.
And so Nathaniel was laid in the best chamber of Alpha Marsh, and Nadjii in Loïs’ own bedroom.
Nokomis, the Huron woman who had served Nathaniel ever since he rescued her from another tribe of Indians, who had slain her son and her husband, came out of hiding, and with a few other women, some old, some sick, who had refused to leave the settlement, set to work to tend the wounded.
“He no dead, she no dead,” said Nokomis, after washing the blood from Father Nat’s head and body, and, with Loïs’ help, performing the same office for Nadjii. “But,” she added, shaking her head, “they both die; no meda[5] save her.”