Moonlight was Indian enough to know that females might not dare to interrupt the solemn council. She was also white woman enough to scorn the humble gait and ways of her red kindred, and to run eagerly to meet her sire as if she had been an out-and-out white girl. The hunter, as we have said, rather prided himself in keeping up some of the ways of his own race. Among other things, he treated his wife and daughter after the manner of white men—that is, well-behaved white men. When Moonlight saw him coming towards his wigwam, she bounded towards him. Little Tim extended his arms, caught her round the slender waist with his big strong hands, and lifted her as if she had been a child until her face was opposite his own.
“Hallo, little beam of light!” he exclaimed, kissing her on each cheek, and then on the point of her tiny nose.
“Eyes of mother—heart of sire,
Fit to set the world on fire.”
Tim had become poetical as he grew older, and sometimes tried to throw his flashing thoughts into couplets. He spoke to his daughter in English, and, like Big Tim with his wife, required her to converse with him in that language.
“Is mother at home?”
“Yes, dear fasser, mosser’s at home.”
“An’ how’s your little doll Skippin’ Rabbit?”
“Oh! she well as could be, an’ a’most as wild too as rabbits. Runs away from me, so I kin hardly kitch her sometime.”
Moonlight accompanied this remark with a merry laugh, as she thought of some of the eccentricities of her little companion.
Entering the wigwam, Little Tim found Brighteyes engaged with an iron pot, from which arose savoury odours. She had been as lithe and active as Moonlight once, and was still handsome and matronly. The eyes, however, from which she derived her name, still shone with undiminished lustre and benignity.