“And Cunnel Boone ’ll let the red varmints chaw him up ter fiddle-strings, afore he deserts a lady. I’ll go a house and farm on that. So now,” was Kenton’s characteristic reply.
Ruby smiled at them both as she said:
“I knew I was not wrong. You have heard of Tabac, the Grand Door of the Wabash. I am his daughter.”
Kenton looked more and more astonished. He scratched his head in a dubious manner, and observed:
“Then, by the holy poker, Miss, all I kin say is that the Grand Door opens into a very pretty place; but—”
Ruby smiled as he hesitated.
“But you wonder how I come to talk English so well, and how I come here; is it not so?”
“Wal, Miss, I ain’t denyin’ that same,” said Kenton, frankly.
“I will tell you, then. The Grand Door is not my own father. No, alas! he died when I was a baby. But, I have been adopted by the chief since then, and my mother reigned over all the tribes of the Wabash till her death, last year. It was only six weeks ago when I escaped from the Indian town by St. Vincent’s, and came here. Gentlemen, I want to see Colonel George Rogers Clark.”
Both the scouts uttered an involuntary exclamation of wonder, the first that had escaped the lips of Boone.