The object in the room most likely to attract the attention of a casual observer was a small square box of polished wood, standing on the table.
Besides the tall clock ticking in a corner, this casket was the only visible thing that bore evidence of having been made by hands more skilled than those of the settler, or with tools other than those common implements ever ready at the pioneer’s grasp, the ax and the auger.
What this curious little box contained, will appear hereafter.
Soon the hunter’s preparations were completed, and slinging a long rifle, which he had taken down from its place on three pegs in the wall, across his shoulders, he turned to his daughter who had wound the soft deer-skin belt, upon which she had wrought innumerable fancy devices, gracefully about her waist and shoulders, and stood regarding him with a merry light sparkling in her blue eyes.
“How do I look, papa?” she asked. “Like some dusky forest princess?”
And she finished by placing a jaunty turban in which were fastened several bright-colored plumes, which drooped down until they touched her beautiful golden hair, coquettishly on her head.
“More like a regular angel, wings and all!” he exclaimed, admiringly: for Emmett Darke loved his beautiful motherless child more than his life. “That hair and those eyes of yours don’t look very Injiny. Wouldn’t that red lover of yours go wild if he saw you now? I don’t wonder he’s half-crazy and calls you ‘Sun-Hair!’ How about that youngster, Clancy Vere, eh, Vinnie? Has he an eye to beauty?”
The maiden blushed rosy red; but the laughing eyes became thoughtful in a moment.
“Do you know, papa, that I often think of him—the Indian? Oh, if he should come some day when you are gone! He is wild and bloodthirsty and his passions are ungovernable. He has taken a solemn vow to make me his wife!”
“He shall never fulfill that vow!” cried the old man, with a dangerous light in his cold gray eyes. “I’ll have his life, first! If he comes here again I’ll give him a free pass to the happy hunting-grounds!”