“Wapaw!” she exclaimed breathlessly.
“Ho!” replied the Indian, with a nod and a smile, as he laid aside his gun and snowshoes, and squatted himself down before the fire.
There was not much to be gathered from “ho!” but the nod and smile proved to Nelly that the intruder was indeed none other than her old friend Wapaw.
Her alarm being now removed, she perceived that the poor Indian was suffering both from fatigue and wounds—perhaps from hunger too; but this latter idea was discarded when she observed that several birds, similar to the one she had just killed, hung at the Indian’s belt. She rose up quickly, therefore, and, running down to the lake, soon returned with a can of clear water, with which she purposed bathing Wapaw’s wounds. Wapaw seized the can, however, and emptied the contents down his throat, so she was constrained to go for a second supply.
Having washed the wounds, which were chiefly on the head and appeared to her to be very severe, although, in reality, they were not so, she set the roasted bird before him and desired him to eat.
Of course she had put a great many questions to Wapaw while thus occupied. Her residence with the Indians had enabled her to speak and understand the Indian tongue a little, and, although she had some difficulty in understanding much of what Wapaw said in reply, she comprehended enough to let her know that a number of white men had been killed by the savages, and that Wapaw was fleeing for his life.
On first hearing this a deadly paleness overspread her face, for she imagined that the white people killed must be her own kindred; but Wapaw quickly relieved her mind on this point.
After this he devoted himself entirely to the roasted bird, and Nelly related to him, as well as she could, the particulars of her own and Roy’s escape from the Indians.