While I was busy down in the dell preparing the tea, Salamander having been left to take care of the camp on the mound, Big Otter came to me. I was alarmed by the solemn expression of his face.
“Nothing wrong, I hope?” said I, anxiously.
“The wife of Weeum the Good is dying,” said the Indian, mournfully.
“Oh! say not so,” I exclaimed, “how dreadful to poor Waboose if this were to happen just now! You must be mistaken.”
“Big Otter may be mistaken. He is not a medicine-man, but he saw a young girl of his tribe with the same look and the same flow of blood from the mouth, and she died.”
“God forbid!” I exclaimed, as I took up the kettle in which the tea was being made. “See, it is ready, I will take it to her. It may at least revive her.”
I hurried to the top of the mound, where poor Eve sat by the couch of brush we had spread, holding her mother’s hand and gazing into her face with painful anxiety. She looked up hastily as I approached, and held up a finger.
“Does she sleep?” I asked, in a low voice, as I seated myself beside the couch and set down the kettle.
“Yes—I think so—but—”
She stopped, for at the moment her mother opened her eyes, and looked wistfully round.