"Well, I sold him the Buckhorn tract. He built his camp, and moved there with the little girl and his mother—a woman of poor health and well past middle age. He brought an old colored man and his wife to be their servants, and there they are to-day—Dunmore and his mother and the girl and the two servants, now grown rather aged, they tell me."
"They have never left the woods?" said Master, as if it were too incredible.
"Dunmore goes to New York, but not oftener than once a year," Gordon went on. "He has property—a good deal of property, I suppose, and has to give it some attention. The others have never left the woods."
"Sends home b-big boxes, an' I t-tote 'em in," Silas explained.
"Do you mean to tell me that Dunmore's daughter has never seen the clearing since she was a baby?"
Strong's interest was thoroughly aroused. He took off his coat and laid it down carefully, as if he were about to go in swimming. He was wont to do this when his thoughts demanded free and full expression.
"B-been t' Tillbury post-office w-with the ol' man—n-no further," Strong explained. "Dunmore says she 'ain't never s-seen a child 'cept one. That was a b-baby. Some man an' his w-wife come through here w-with it from the n-north th-three year ago."
"Fact is, I think he feared for a long time that his wife would try to get possession of the child," said Gordon. "Late years, I understand, the girl has had to take care of the old lady. In a letter to me once Dunmore referred to his daughter as the 'little nun of the green veil,' and spoke of her devotion to her grandmother."
Gordon rose and went to his bed in one of the cabins. Strong and the young man kept their seats at the camp-fire, talking of Dunmore and his daughter and their life in the woods. The Emperor, who felt for this lonely child of the forest, talked from a sense of duty.
"S-sail in," he presently said. "S-sail in an' t-tame her."