“Has it not occurred to you,” said Glenn, addressing Roughgrove, “that this young chief might possibly be your own son?”
“No!” replied the old man, promptly, and partially rising, “he my son—he Mary’s brother—and once in the act of plunging the tomahawk—”
“But, father,” interrupted Mary, “he would never have harmed me—I know he would not—for every time he looked me in the face he seemed to pity me, and sometimes he almost wept to think I was away from my friends, among savages, cold and distressed. But I don’t think he can be my brother—my little brother I used to love so much—yet I could never think how he should have fallen in the river without my knowing it. Sometimes I remember it all as if it were yesterday. He was hunting wild violets—”
“Oh! oh!” screamed the young chief, springing from his seat towards Mary. Fear, pain, apprehension, joy and affection, all seemed to be mingled in his heaving breast.
“He’s crazy, dod”—the word died upon Sneak’s lip.
“I should like to know who burnt his foot then,” said Joe.
“Silence! both of you,” said Glenn.
“What does he mean?” at length asked Roughgrove, staring at the young chief.
“Let us be patient, and see,” said Glenn.
Ere long the Indian turned his eyes slowly downward, and resumed his seat mournfully and in silence.