He had already decided what to give her, and knew that his offering would not suffer by comparison with Ronald's, even though no poem went with it; but when he went to his room to look in his box for the moccasins he had bought so long ago, he was astonished to find that they were gone.
He ransacked the room thoroughly, but without success. He could not even remember when he had seen them last, though he knew he had taken them down from the wall of his room and put them away. Still, he was not greatly concerned, for he was sure that he could go to the Indian camp and find another pair.
After school he started off on a long, lonely tramp, and returned at sunset, empty handed and exasperated. Beatrice had on her pink calico gown, and was sitting demurely upon the piazza—alone. She seemed like a rose to her lover, and he was about to tell her so, but she forestalled him.
"Where's my birthday present?" she asked, sweetly; "I've been looking for it all day!"
Then he told her about the moccasins he had for her, though he failed to mention the fact that he had bought them for her long before she came to Fort Dearborn. "When I went after them this morning," he said, "I discovered that they had been stolen. I've been out now to see if I couldn't get another pair, but I couldn't even find a squaw who was willing to make them. You don't know how sorry I am!"
"Never mind," she said soothingly, "it's no matter. Of course, I'd love to have the moccasins, but it's the thought, rather than the gift, and I'd rather know that you found out from Aunt Eleanor when my birthday was, and tried to give me pleasure, than to have the pleasure itself."
The colour mounted to Robert's temples, but he could not speak. He felt that his silence was a lie, and a cowardly one at that, but he was helpless before the girl's smile.
"What's that?" asked Beatrice, suddenly, pointing across the river.
There was a stir at the Fort. Men ran in and out, evidently under stress of great excitement, then a tall and stately being, resplendent in a new uniform, came out and turned a handspring on the esplanade.