"Come here, little gal," he said to Snowdrop; "I want to tell you suthin."
The Indian girl came out, and Jehiel showed her the arrow, and after explaining how it came in his possession, added:
"I guessed you might know more about it than me. What does it mean? Kin you tell, from the looks of the stick, what tribe made it?"
The girl took the arrow and examined both the steel head and the spiral coil of feathers upon the tip.
"Snowdrop does not know. She will ask her father; perhaps he can tell—but what is that tied around it?"
Then Jehiel observed, what had before escaped his notice, that a piece of paper was wrapped about the arrow-stem, and he carefully removed it.
"Jewhillakens!" was his exclamation, as he recognized the handwriting.
He read it over to himself, while Snowdrop stood waiting for an explanation.
Jehiel looked up with a puzzled expression—he did not know whether it would be safe for him to tell her or not. He more than half-doubted the sincerity of the Blackfoot chief—at the same time, he had resolved to shoot him, should he find that Gray Eagle had deceived them.
And, he argued, what need he care for Snowdrop? She still insisted that she would be no man's wife if she could not be the wife of White Panther.