“The—Sun—Maid! Kit-ty, my Kitty?”
Gaspar’s face had paled at the mention of the Sun Maid to such a grayness beneath its brown that Mercy reached her hand to stay him from falling; but at his second question her womanly intuition told her something of the truth.
“Yes, Gaspar, boy. Your Kitty, and ours. We hadn’t seen her till to-day, neither; not since that harvestin’. But the longing got too strong and, when we was burnt out, we came straight for her. Didn’t you know she was here yet? Or didn’t you know she was still alive?”
“No. No, I didn’t. That very next winter after I went away—and that was the next day after we came here together—an Indian passed where I was hunting with my master and told me she had died. He was one we had known at Muck-otey-pokee—the White Pelican. He said a scourge of smallpox had swept the Fort and this settlement and that my little maid had passed out of the world forever. But you tell me—she is alive? After all these years of sorrow for her, she is still alive? I—it is hard to believe it.”
Mercy laid her hand upon the strong shoulder that now trembled in excitement.
“There, there, son; take it quiet. Yes, she’s alive, and the most beautiful woman the good Lord ever made. Never, even in the East, where girls had time to grow good-looking, was there ever anybody like her. I ain’t used to it myself, yet. I can’t realize it. She’s that well growed, and eddicated, and masterful. Why, child, the whole community looks up to her as if she were a sort of queen. I’ve found that out in just the few hours I’ve been here, and from just the few I’ve met. Even Wahneeny—she’s here, too; has been most all the time. The Black Partridge, Indian chief, he that was her brother, that took care of you two children when the massacre was, he didn’t expect she’d ever come again; but still, it appears, just on the chance of it, he rode off up country somewhere, and he happened to strike her trail, and that Osceolo’s—the scamp—that had run off with Kitty’s white horse, and fetched ’em all back. The women in the Fort was tellin’ me the whole story just now. I hain’t got a word out of Wahneeny, yet. She’s as close-mouthed as she ever was; but there’s more to hear than you could hark to in a day’s ride, and—Where you going, Gaspar?”
“To find my Kitty.”
“Well, you needn’t. And I don’t know as she’s any more yours than she is ours, seein’ we really had the credit of raisin’ her. For she’s took her life in her hand, and has gone alone, without ary man to protect her, out across the prairie to face five hunderd Indians on the war-path, and—Hold on! What you up to?”
The sailor, or hunter, whichever he might be, had started along the footpath to the Fort, and halted, half angrily, at this interruption.
“Well? What? I’ll see you by and by. I must find Kitty!”