“I had expected as much,” said the Indian, looking round the camp, “and I had thought to find it here.”
“Not here,” returned the girl, with a soft laugh; “you don’t know mother as well as I do! There is a tree, under the shade of which she and I used to work when the days were long. If there is a message anywhere, it is there.”
She bounded away as she spoke, like a fawn, and in a few minutes returned with a piece of bark in her hand.
“Here it is, father. I knew it would be there. Let us sit down now and make it out.”
Sitting down beside the cold hearth of the old home, father and child began to spell out Isquay’s letter, while Cheenbuk looked on in admiring silence and listened.
The letter bore a strong family likeness to that which had formerly been written—or drawn—by Adolay at Waruskeek, showing clearly whence the girl had derived her talent.
“The hand at the top points the way clear enough,” said the Indian, “but were you careful to observe the direction before you moved it?”
“Of course I was, father. I’m not a baby now,” returned the girl, with a laugh and a glance at Cheenbuk.
“That you certainly are not!” thought the Eskimo, with a look of open admiration.
“It pointed there,” she continued, extending her hand in a north-westerly direction.