“Patsy, don’t. You are wonderful.”
“Still being good to me, Basdel. But I know the truth now. Back over the mountains I was wicked enough to feel a little superior to frontier folks. No. Don’t wave your hands at me. I must say it. I even felt a little bit of contempt for those brave women who went barefooted. God forgive me! I was a cat, Basdel. A vicious cat!”
“Good heavens, Patsy! Say it all and have done with it. Call yourself a pirate.”
She would not respond to my banter, but fell to staring into the handful of coals. Then the tears began streaming down her face, and at last she sobbed:
“Poor girl! Poor girl! She was a wonderful friend to me. She never had any chance, and you can never know how hard she tried to keep my spirits up; how ready she was to stand between me and harm—me, who has had every chance! And to end like that! And yet it was far worse to live like that. It’s best as it is, but God must be very good to her to make up for what she lost. Tell me, Basdel, did she suffer much when she died?”
She could be talking only of Cousin’s sister. I declared:
“She suffered none. It’s best for her as it is.”
She fell asleep with her back against a black walnut, and I spread my hunting-shirt over her, for the air was shrewdly cool. In the dying coals I saw pictures, wherein Kirst, Dale, and Lost Sister paraded in turn; the fate of each the result of race-hatred, and a race-avidity to possess the land. And a great fear came over me that the girl leaning against the walnut, the mass of blue-black hair seeming to bow down the proud head, was destined to be added to the purchase-price the frontier was ever paying.
It was her talk and tears that induced this mood, for I knew the Shawnees would have overtaken us by this time had they found our trail on the Kentucky shore. Common sense told me that for the remainder of our journey we would, at worst, be compelled to avoid small scouting-parties that had no intimation of our presence on the Big Sandy.
But so many gruesome pranks had been played by Fate that I was growing superstitious. And I feared lest the girl should be snatched from me at the last moment, just as safety was almost within sight. I slept poorly that night and what little rest I did obtain was along toward morning.