“Friend come to see friend,” answered June, again smiling openly in the other's face.
“There is some other reason, June, else would you never run this risk, and alone. You are alone, June?”
“June wid you, no one else. June come alone, paddle canoe.”
“I hope so, I think so—nay, I know so. You would not be treacherous with me, June?”
“What treacherous?”
“You would not betray me, would not give me to the French, to the Iroquois, to Arrowhead?”
June shook her head earnestly.
“You would not sell my scalp?”
Here June passed her arm fondly around the slender waist of Mabel and pressed her to her heart with a tenderness and affection that brought tears into the eyes of our heroine. It was done in the fond caressing manner of a woman, and it was scarcely possible that it should not obtain credit for sincerity with a young and ingenuous person of the same sex. Mabel returned the pressure, and then held the other off at the length of her arm, looked her steadily in the face, and continued her inquiries.
“If June has something to tell her friend, let her speak plainly,” she said. “My ears are open.”