“Eyes will not always do, June, This spot is hid from ordinary sight, and few of even our own people know how to find it.”
“One man can tell; some Yengeese talk French.”
Mabel felt a chill at her heart. All the suspicions against Jasper, which she had hitherto disdained entertaining, crowded in a body on her thoughts; and the sensation that they brought was so sickening, that for an instant she imagined she was about to faint. Arousing herself, and remembering her promise to her father, she arose and walked up and down the hut for a minute, fancying that Jasper's delinquencies were naught to her, though her inmost heart yearned with the desire to think him innocent.
“I understand your meaning, June,” she then said; “you wish me to know that some one has treacherously told your people where and how to find the island?”
June laughed, for in her eyes artifice in war was oftener a merit than a crime; but she was too true to her tribe herself to say more than the occasion required. Her object was to save Mabel, and Mabel only; and she saw no sufficient reason for “travelling out of the record,” as the lawyers express it, in order to do anything else.
“Pale-face know now,” she added. “Blockhouse good for girl, no matter for men and warriors.”
“But it is much matter with me, June; for one of those men is my uncle, whom I love, and the others are my countrymen and friends. I must tell them what has passed.”
“Then June be kill,” returned the young Indian quietly, though she evidently spoke with concern.
“No; they shall not know that you have been here. Still, they must be on their guard, and we can all go into the blockhouse.”
“Arrowhead know, see everything, and June be kill. June come to tell young pale-face friend, not to tell men. Every warrior watch his own scalp. June woman, and tell woman; no tell men.”