While thus engaged the clouds rolled off the moon, and I saw my companions clearly, sitting like statues at their posts. In a few minutes I heard the sweet, low voice of Eve. She was speaking to her mother. As I sat there and observed her fair hair and skin, and recalled (for I could not just then see) her blue eyes, I found it difficult to believe that there was even a drop of Indian blood in her veins. “Not that I object to Indian blood,” I said to myself, mentally, in self-justification, “by no means. Indians are God’s creatures as well as white men, and many of them are a great deal better creatures than many white men, but—”
At this point my mental remarks ceased, for I observed, to my surprise, that Eve opened a small book, and from the continuous tone of her voice, I knew that she was reading.
“It must be the Testament,” thought I, “which poor Liston mentioned in his manuscript as having been obtained from a hunter.”
The voice became more distinct as she proceeded, and I could make out that she read the English slowly and with great difficulty, and then translated it into Indian to her mother.
“God so loved the world,” she read with peculiar emphasis, and paused, as if wishing to impress the blessed truth, “that He gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
She closed the book at this point and I observed that she bent over the sick woman a long time.
Suddenly there arose on the still night-air a low wail, so deep—so suggestive of a breaking heart, that I sprang up and leaped to the girl’s side.
There was no occasion to ask what had occurred. The mother lay there dead, with the jaw dropped and the glazing eyes staring at the sky. Kneeling down I gently closed the eyes, and with a napkin bound up the face. Big Otter glided towards us, followed by Salamander. One glance sufficed. They cast a look of pity at the orphan, who, with her face on her knees, sobbed as if her heart would break. Then, without a word, they glided back to their posts. I turned to Eve and took her hand.
“Dear girl,” I began—but she checked me.
“Go,” she said, “danger may be near; your post is unguarded.”