"Your great warrior has seen my son?" she said eagerly.
"Yes," Sunbeam quickly answered, "Spider saw the pale hunter, and spoke. Koutonepi gave him a necklace for my mother."
"A necklace?" she repeated, in surprise, not understanding what the woman meant; "What am I to do with it?"
Sunbeam's face assumed a serious expression.
"The white men are great sorcerers," she said, "they know how to make powerful medicines; by figures traced on birch bark communicate their thoughts at great distances; space does not exist for them. Will not my mother receive the necklace her son sends her?"
"Give it me, my dear child," she eagerly answered; "everything that comes from him is precious to me."
The young squaw drew from under her striped calico dress a square piece of bark of the size of her hand, and gave it to her. Madame Guillois took it curiously, not knowing what this present meant. She turned it over and over, while Sunbeam watched her attentively. All at once the old lady's features brightened, and she uttered a cry of joy; she had perceived a few words traced on the inside of the bark with the point of a knife.
"Is my mother satisfied?" Sunbeam asked.
"Oh, yes," she answered.
She eagerly perused the note; it was short, contained indeed but a few words, yet they filled the mother with delight; for they gave her certain news of her son. This is what Valentine wrote—