“Bless you, old woman,” said the hunter, giving his wife a hearty kiss, “you’re as fond o’ victuals as ever, I see.”
“At least my husband is, so I keep the pot boiling,” retorted Brighteyes, with a smile, that proved her teeth to be as white as in days of yore.
“Right, old girl, right. Your husband is about as good at emptying the pot as he is at filling it. Come, let’s have some, while I tell you of a journey that’s in store for you.”
“A long one?” asked the wife.
“No, only a day’s journey on horseback. You’re goin’ to meet an old friend.”
From this point her husband went on to tell about the arrival and wounding of the preacher, and how he had expressed an earnest desire to see her.
While they were thus engaged, the prairie chief was similarly employed enlightening his own mother.
That kind-hearted bundle of shrivelled-up antiquity was seated on the floor on the one side of a small fire. Her son sat on the opposite side, gazing at her through the smoke, with, for an Indian, an unwonted look of deep affection.
“The snows of too many winters are on my head to go on journeys now,” she said, in a feeble, quavering voice. “Is it far that my son wants me to go?”
“Only one day’s ride towards the setting sun, thou dear old one.”