“Have you heard that Kateegoose is dead?” asked Slowfoot.
“No—how did he die?”
“He was met on the plains by enemies, killed, and scalped.”
“That is sad—very sad,” said La Certe.
“The world is well rid of him,” observed Slowfoot; “he was a bad man.”
“Yes,” responded her lord; “it is necessary to get rid of a bad man somehow—but—but it is sad—very sad—to kill and scalp him.”
La Certe passed his fingers softly among the locks of his sleeping child as if the fate of Kateegoose were suggestive! Then, turning, as from a painful subject, he asked—
“Does our little one never smoke now?”
“No—never.”
“Does she never wish for it?”