"Prairie-Flower wishes to welcome her adopted father," she replied gently, in a sweet melodious voice.
"Prairie-Flower's place is not here, I will speak with her presently: let her go and rejoin her companions, the young maidens of the tribe."
Prairie-Flower blushed still deeper, her rosy lips pouted, and after shaking her head petulantly twice, she flew away like a bird, casting at the Count, as she fled, a parting glance, which caused him an incomprehensible emotion.
The young man laid his hand on his heart, to suppress its beating, and followed the girl with his eyes till she disappeared behind a cabin.
"Oh!" the chief muttered aside, "can she have suddenly recognized a being of that accursed race to which she belongs?"
Then turning to the white men, whose eyes he felt instinctively were fixed on him,—
"Enter," he said, raising the buffalo skin, which served as a door to the cabin.
They went in. By Natah Otann's care the cabin had been cleaned, and every comfort it was possible to find placed in it, that is to say—piles of furs to serve as a bed, a rickety table, some wooden clumsy benches, and a species of reed easy chair, with a large back.
"The Paleface will excuse the poor Indians if they have not done more to welcome him as he deserves," the chief said, with a mixture of irony and humility.
"It is all famous," the young man answered with a smile; "I certainly did not expect so much; besides, I have been on the prairie long enough to satisfy myself with what is strictly necessary."