"And now, Ah-mo, I want to ask you the most important question of all. Will you—I mean, can you—"
"Come in to supper," interrupted Paymaster Bullen, bustling out on the veranda at that moment. "Who is it? You, Donald, and you, Ah-mo, my dear girl? Why, there won't be a bite left, if you don't hurry. Never saw such feeders in my life. 'Pon honor, I never did."
"And I didn't have a chance to ask my question," whispered Donald, disconsolately.
"Perhaps you will have a better chance the next time we meet," replied Ah-mo, mischievously.
On the following day came the wedding, with the genuine sensation of an Indian princess as bridesmaid, and opinion was evenly divided as to which was the loveliest,—she, or the bride herself.
On the day after, when Donald called at the Bullens', with his question trembling on his lips, he was astounded and bewildered to learn that Ah-mo had left the evening before on a swift-sailing sloop for Albany. From there she would hasten to Oswego and rejoin her father, who only awaited her coming to start for his distant western home.
"But, sir," said "Tummas," who in all the glory of a gorgeous new livery, had just opened the door, "the young lady left a note for you, hand 'ere it is."
Hastily tearing open the dainty billet thus handed him, Donald read:—
"If your question concerns the belle of a New York ball-room, it had best remain unasked. If it is intended for a simple Indian girl, it had best be asked among the lodges of her people."
A month later the question was asked, and answered very much to Donald's satisfaction; while he, clad in buckskin, and Ah-mo dressed as were the other girls of her tribe, drifted in a canoe on the placid surface of the Detroit river. They were married in the quaint little chapel of the fort, and, as Pontiac gave his beautiful daughter into the arms of him, who was now become doubly his son, he said:—