“My white father says truth,” replied the hunter, with slightly humorous glances at his huge limbs. “Daddy is little, but he is strong—uncommon strong.”
“He used to be so when I knew him,” returned the preacher, “and I dare say the twenty years that have passed since then have not changed him much, for he is a good deal younger than I am—about the same age, I should suppose, as my old friend Whitewing.”
“Yes, that’s so,” said the hunter; “they’re both about five-an’-forty or there-away, though I doubt if either o’ them is quite sure about his age. An’ they’re both beginning to be grizzled about the scalp-locks.”
“Your father, although somewhat reckless in his disposition,” continued the preacher, after a pause, “was a man of earnest mind.”
“That’s a fact, an’ no mistake,” returned Big Tim, examining a pot of soup which his bride had put on the fire to warm up for their visitor. “I doubt if ever I saw a more arnest-minded man than daddy, especially when he tackles his victuals or gets on the track of a grizzly b’ar.”
The missionary smiled, in spite of himself, as he explained that the earnestness he referred to was connected rather with the soul and the spiritual world than with this sublunary sphere.
“Well, he is arnest about that too,” returned the hunter. “He has often told me that he didn’t use to trouble his head about such matters long ago, but after that time when he met you on the prairies he had been led to think a deal more about ’em. He’s a queer man is daddy, an’ putts things to ye in a queer way sometimes. ‘Timmy,’ says he to me once—he calls me Timmy out o’ fondness, you know—‘Timmy,’ says he, ‘if you comed up to a great thick glass wall, not very easy to see through, wi’ a door in it, an’ you was told that some day that door would open, an’ you’d have to go through an’ live on the other side o’ that glass wall, you’d be koorious to know the lie o’ the land on the other side o’ that wall, wouldn’t you, and what sort o’ customers you’d have to consort wi’ there, eh?’
“‘Yes, daddy,’ says I, ‘you say right, an’ I’d be a great fool if I didn’t take a good long squint now an’ again.’
“‘Well, Timmy,’ says he, ‘this world is that glass wall, an’ death is the door through it, an’ the Bible that the preacher gave me long ago is the Book that helps to clear up the glass an’ enable us to see through it a little better; an’ a Blackfoot bullet or arrow may open the door to you an’ me any day, so I’d advise you, lad, to take a good squint now an’ again.’ An’ I’ve done it, too, Preacher, I’ve done it, but there’s a deal on it that I don’t rightly understand.”
“That I do not wonder at, my young friend; and I hope that if God spares me I may be able to help you a little in this matter. But what of Whitewing? Has he never tried to assist you?”