“I am here. I go to my people,” she answered. “He is waiting for you. The squaws would laugh at him. He is very weak.”
With an oath I whirled toward the Indian. Had he made a move or had he reflected her disdain with a smile, his white-red wife surely would have been a widow on the spot. But he had not shifted his position. To all appearances he was not even interested in his wife’s return. And she too now ignored me, and busied herself in gathering up their few belongings and slinging them on her back. Then she went to him, and in disgust and rage I left them and sped through the darkening woods to the spring where I had first seen the imprints of her tiny moccasins.
Cousin was there, seated and his head bowed on his chest, a waiting victim for the first Indian scout who might happen along.
I dragged him to his feet and harshly said:
“Come! We must go. Your white sister is dead. Your search is ended. Your sister died in the raid on Keeney’s Knob.”
“My little sister,” he whispered.
He went with me passively enough, and he did not speak until we had struck into the main trail of the Shawnees. Then he asked:
“You did not kill him?”
“No.”
“It’s best that way. There’re ’nough others. They’ll pay for it.”