There arose in John’s mind at once the same question that had perplexed Ree—should they help these needy Indians, while those who ought to be at home providing for them were fighting the white troops and, no doubt, killing settlers and plundering and burning their cabins?
“After all, we can’t let the poor Redskins starve,” he said at last.
“Just what I said to myself on the way home,” Ree replied.
Theodore Hatch had risen and was walking up and down the one tiny room of the cabin, despondent and deeply sorrowing, as was usual with him when he heard news of bloodshed. He spoke no word, but at last, still deep in thought, laid himself down upon his bed and buried his face in the coarse pillow formed in part by his closely-watched saddle bags. His position had not changed when the two boys were ready to go to bed, and, thinking he slept, they covered him over with a blanket and bearskin.
All night the wind howled through the valley of the Cuyahoga, bending the strongest limbs of the forest trees and snapping dead branches off short with a sudden crackling which added to the threatening noises all about. All night the snow went flying before the gale, piling itself in drifts upon the log doorstep of the lonely cabin, against every fallen tree and against every rock and bluff for miles around,—in the haunted spot where the sunken eyes of the dead Black Eagle stared upward through their mantle of white, and beside the smoky hut where Gentle Maiden knelt before the fire and besought the Great Spirit to send aid to her father’s people.
All night the storm raged and even the dismal voices of the wolves were stilled and they slunk into their cavern homes; so much the safer were the timid deer seeking shelter among the low-boughed trees of the ravines. All night the troubled Quaker lay face downward upon his bed, his mind struggling between his love for gold and his wish to do right. On their own bed in the corner, Return Kingdom and John Jerome soundly slept or, partially awakened from time to time by the fierceness of the tempest, dreamed the hours away.
The coming of morning showed the hours of darkness to have been very busy ones for the storm king.
“I think we will not be venturing far from the cabin to-day,” said John, looking out.
“Lucky there is no need of doing so,” Ree answered.
“Dear friends”—it was the Quaker who spoke, and his voice was strangely soft and low, reminding the boys at once of the caressing way in which he always addressed his mare, Phœbe—“whatever the depth of snow or the cold, I am going to the town of the Delawares to carry them whatever food thee will spare me for them.”