“Then you’ll make up your mind to pitch your wigwam here, I hope, and make it your home.”
“No, Big Otter’s heart is in his own land in the far north. He will go back to it.”
“What! and forsake Waboose?” said Eve, looking up from her work with an expression of real concern.
With a gratified air the Indian replied, “Big Otter will return.”
“Soon!” I asked.
“Not very long.”
“When do you start?”
“Before yon sun rises again,” said Big Otter, pointing to the westward, where the heavens above, and the heavens reflected in the lake below, were suffused with a golden glow.
“Then I shall have to spend the most of the night writing,” said I, “for I cannot let you go without a long letter to my friend Lumley, and a shorter one to Macnab. I have set my heart on getting them both to leave the service, and come here to settle alongside of me.”
“You see, your friend Muxbee,” said Aunt Temple, using the Indian’s pronunciation of my name, “is like the fox which lost his tail. He wishes all other foxes to cut off their tails so as to resemble him.”