“We are not talking of that, colonel. I brought you a certain proposition from Tabac, the Grand Sachem and Grand Door of the Wabash. Have you any answer for it?”
Clark smiled provokingly. He was a man of great penetration and tact, as the reader will discover in the course of this book, and for some reason he did not see fit to give the girl a full answer at the moment.
“You see that field,” he said, pointing; “now, Mademoiselle Roland, if you wait here half an hour I’ll show you some of the tallest kind of fun that you ever saw. And after that, I’ll be ready to talk business to you.”
So saying, he vanished from the block-house, with very scant ceremony for the lady it contained, leaving her overwhelmed with surprise and mortification, not unmixed with great anger at herself.
Ruby Roland, left to herself, clenched her little hands and stamped her foot angrily, saying:
“Why did I come here through all these dangers to meet this handsome, insolent American, who laughs at me? Does he think I am some common squaw, that he leaves me thus? Now, by heavens, if he does not treat me better at our next interview, he shall find that Ruby Roland can go out as she came in, and woe betide all here if she does, and his handsome, insolent face worst of all. Oh, I could strike him dead!”
From all which tirade, it became evident that Miss Ruby was very much piqued at Colonel Clark’s neglect, while, at the same time, much struck with his personal appearance. Whatever her proposition might have been, she was not destined to obtain an answer to it that morning, for events speedily took place which interested her in spite of herself.
Looking down toward the gate, she saw reckless Simon Kenton standing by its open leaves, with two or three other men, and saw Colonel Clark approach and give the scout some orders. Simon nodded, sauntered out of the gate, with Boone and five or six hunters, and strolled carelessly toward the field in front of the gate where the cows were feeding, and where the animals appeared to be very uneasy—a sure sign of Indians being near them.
Ruby, watching the length of the palisades, soon after saw the colonel himself, with a long file of men, emerge from behind the block-house at the further angle of the fort, and steal off into the woods, in the very direction from which she had come the night before.
Interested in spite of herself, she watched and listened for signs of the enemy. All was quiet, and it seemed as if the besiegers must have retired from the place but for the behavior of the cattle.