Gwynne was secretly astonished and rather skeptical. He would have taken oath that she was twenty-two or -three years old, and not nineteen as computation made her.
"She ain't lived here all the time," volunteered Eliza, somewhat defensively. "She was to school in St. Louis fer two or three years an'—"
The young lady interrupted the speaker coldly. "Please, Eliza!"
Eliza, looking considerably crestfallen, accepted the rebuke meekly. "I jest thought he'd be interested," she murmured.
"She came up the Wabash when she was nothin' but a striplin'," began Striker, not profiting by his wife's experience. He might have gone on at considerable length if he had not met the reproving, violet eye. He changed the subject hastily. "As I was sayin', we've had a powerful lot o' rain lately. Why, by gosh, last week you could have went fishin' in our pertato patch up yander an' got a mess o' sunfish in less'n no time. I never knowed the Wabash to be on setch a rampage. An' as fer the Wild Cat Crick and Tippecanoe River, why, they tell me there ain't been anything like—How's that?"
"Is Wabash an Indian name?" repeated Kenneth.
"That's what they say. Named after a tribe that used to hunt an' fish up an' down her, they say."
"There was once a tribe of Indians in this part of the country," broke in the girl, with sudden zest, "known as the Ouabachi. We know very little about them nowadays, however. They were absorbed by other and stronger tribes far back in the days of the French occupation, I suppose. French trappers and voyageurs are known to have traversed and explored the wilderness below here at least one hundred and fifty years ago. There is an old French fort quite near here,—Ouiatanon."
"She knows purty nigh everything," said Phineas, proudly. "Well, I guess we're about as full as it's safe to be, so now's your chance, Zachariah."
He pushed back his stool noisily and arose. Taking up the two candlesticks, he led the way to the sitting-room, stopping at the door for a word of instruction to the negro. "You c'n put your blankets down here on the kitchen floor when you're ready to go to bed. Mrs. Striker will kick you in the mornin' if you ain't awake when she comes out to start breakfast."