"I know all about it. I war on the bank of the creek, Miss Edith, when the Ingian woman paddled you back; and I guessed how it had all been. I said to myself, when I heard more of it two days arter. 'Her father will be mighty angry;' and so he war, I guess."
"You are mistaken, my friend," said Mr. Prevost, laying his hand on Edith's with a tender pressure. "I was not angry, though I was much alarmed; but that alarm was not of long endurance, for I was detained much more than I expected at Sir William Johnson's, and my anxiety was only protracted two days after my return. Still you have not told us your plans. If that dear girl, Otaitsa, can help us, she will do it, though it cost her life."
Woodchuck paused a moment or two in deep, absent thought, and over his rough countenance the trace of many strong emotions flitted. At length, he said, in a low, distinct voice, "She can do nothing. Black Eagle has the boy under his keen eye. He loves him well, Mr. Prevost; and he will treat him kindly. But just inasmuch as he does love him, he will make it a point to keep him safely, and to kill him too, if he haven't got another victim. That man should ha' been one of them old Romans I have heard talk of, who killed their sons and daughters, rather than not do what they thought right. He'd not spare his own flesh and blood--not he; and the more-he loves him, the surer he'll kill him."
Edith wept, and Mr. Prevost covered his eyes with his hands; but Woodchuck, who had been gazing down upon the table, and saw not the powerful emotions which his words had produced, proceeded, after a gloomy pause--
"He'll watch his daughter sharply too. Yet they say he praised her daring; and I guess he did, for that's just the sort of thing to strike his fancy; but he'll take care she shan't do it again. No, no. There's but one way with Black Eagle. I know him well, and he knows me, and there is but one way with him."
"What is that?" asked Mr. Prevost, in a tone of deep melancholy.
"Just to do what I intend," returned Woodchuck, with a very calm manner. "Mr. Prevost, I love my life as well as any man--a little too much, mayhap; and I intend to keep it as long as I rightly can, for there are always things wrote in that chapter of accidents that none on us can see. But I don't intend to let your son Walter--he's a good boy--be put to death for a thing of my doing. You don't suppose it. Atfirst, when the thing came fresh upon me at Albany, I felt mighty like a fool and a coward; and I would ha' skulked away into any hole just to save myself from myself. But I soon took thought, and made up my mind. Now, here you and Miss Edith have been praising and thanking me for trying to save poor Walter's life. I didn't deserve praise, or thanks either. It was my own life I was trying to save; for, if I could get him out secretly, we should both be secure enough. But I've given that up. It can't be done, and Black Eagle knows it. He knows me, too; and he's just as sure, at this blessed moment, that before the day he has appointed for Walter to die, Woodchuck will walk in and say, 'Here I am!' as he is that he's in his own lodge. Then he will have got the right man, and all will be settled. Now, Mr. Prevost--and you, Miss Edith--you know what I intend to do. To-morrow, when I'm a bit rested, I shall set out again, and take my ramble in the mountains, like Jephtha's daughter, as I said. Then, this day month, I will be here again to bid you all good-bye. Walter will have to tell you the rest. Don't cry so, there's a good girl. You're like to set me a' crying too. There's one thing more I have to ask you both, and that is, never speak another word to me about this matter--not even when I come back again. I try not to think of it at all myself, and I don't much now. If I can screw myself up, like them Ingians, I shall just walk quietly in among them as if nothing were going to happen, and say, 'Set the boy free! Here is Woodchuck himself,' and then die--not like an Ingian, but like a Christian, I trust, and one that knows he's a' doing of his duty anyhow. So now not a word more--but let us talk of something else."
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
An hour had passed after the conversation detailed in the last chapter, and Woodchuck had steadily and sturdily refused to pursue any further the subject of his fixed determination, although both Mr. Prevost and Edith, deeply touched, and, to say truth, much agitated, would fain have dwelt upon the topic longer. Edith felt, and Mr. Prevost argued in his own mind, that the poor man was performing a generous and self-devoted act, which no moral obligation forced upon him. They felt, too, that so noble a heart was not one which ought to be sacrificed to the vengeful spirit of the Indians; and the natural feeling of joy and satisfaction which they experienced at the apparent certainty of Walter's deliverance from death seemed to them almost a crime when it was to be purchased at so dear a price.
Woodchuck's obstinacy, however, had conquered; the subject had been changed; and, as they now sat together in the little room, to which he had led the way after speaking the last words cited, they continued, while the shades of evening gathered quickly round them, a broken sort of conversation upon topics connected with that which they had quitted, though avoiding the point which was most painfully prominent in the mind of each. They rambled a good deal indeed, though ever taking a direction which faintly showed, like the waves in the trees marking the course of a forest-path, what the mind was running on beneath the mere words.