“Ah, I do not know!” she said softly. “I do not know, my friend. There is only one who could tell me; and some day my mother said he would come to tell me—Metaminens! There, look on the other side of this crooked tree, this sacred tree which the tribes worship as holy—you will see who taught me.”
Crawford obeyed her gesture, and rounded the bole of that great tree. There, carved in the bark, he saw a cross, and below this a little mound of grassy earth.
His eyes were opened suddenly; a rush of emotion seized upon him, as he comprehended all that this girl did not comprehend. He understood that it was not she whom Sieur Nicholas Perrot had seen in past years, but another; now he remembered that veil which had dropped over Perrot’s words, that swift checking of too impulsive speech; and he knew that he had been given to understand something which must not pass his lips. He silently took the girl’s hand again and bowed over it, and as he touched his lips to her fingers, they tightened on his. It was between them a tacit exchange of sympathy, of friendliness——
A burst of shots sounded, and the Star Woman twisted about.
“Oh! Come quickly.”
The magic spell was broken; the shots of the Stone Men were drums of materialism, grimly recalling Crawford to the present. He drew a deep breath and turned to accompany her toward the thick trees that fringed in the little point of rock. He brought himself to face what he knew well must be a desperate situation.
“How many men have you here?” he demanded, his thinly chiseled features tensed and alert once more. The Star Woman gave him a curious look, sensing the change.
“Standing Bull has fifteen of his young men here; Old Bear brought five warriors from the Teton clan, to the west. With you, Frontin, and the Mohegan, that makes twenty-five.”
“Have you healed Le Talon, then, as you have me?”
A sad smile touched her lips. “I cannot do more than is humanly possible. The chief’s leg will always be crippled, for flesh and muscles are shrunken.”