Stonor and Clare looked at each other startled. This would be a calamity after having travelled all that way. “Where is he?” Stonor demanded.
The young Indian, delighted at his apparent success, answered glibly: “He say he goin’ down to Great Buffalo Lake this summer.”
An instant’s reflection satisfied Stonor that if this were true it would have been brought out first instead of last. “Oh, well, since we’ve come as far as this we’ll go the rest of the way to make sure,” he said calmly.
Ahteeah looked disappointed. They pushed off. The Indians watched them go in sullen silence.
“Certainly we are not popular in this neighbourhood,” said Stonor lightly. “One can’t get rid of the feeling that their minds have been poisoned against us. Mary, can’t you tell me why they give me such black looks?”
She shook her head. “I think there is something,” she said. “But they not tell me because I with you.”
“Maybe it has something to do with me?” said Clare.
“How could that be? They never heard of you.”
“I think it is Stonor,” said Mary.
Clare was harder to rouse out of herself to-day. Stonor did his best not to show that he perceived anything amiss, and strove to cheer her with chaff and foolishness—likewise to keep his own heart up, but not altogether with success.