“Bighorn,” said Dick impressively, “you’ve been made to comfort and gladden the heart o’ yer old mother in her last moments. If ye was a pale-face, ye’d thank the Great Spirit for that to the last day o’ yer life. If ye ever do come to think like the pale-faces, you’ll remember that you’ve to thank me for bringing ye here. Go, tell the redskins who it is that caught ye, and what he did and said to ye.”
Saying this, Dick mounted his horse and rode very slowly into the forest, leaving the redman standing by the side of his mother’s grave.
After Mary had concluded this story, which, we may remark, she related with much fewer comments than we have seen fit to pass upon it, she and March looked at each other for a long time in silence. Then March suddenly exclaimed—
“He’s a splendid fellow—Dick!”
Mary, both by looks and words, highly approved of this opinion. “And yet,” said she somewhat abstractedly, “this bees the man who peepils call—”
Mary pursed her lips suddenly.
“Call what?” inquired March quickly.
“Wicked, wild, bad man,” replied Mary, who, fortunately, could say all this with perfect truth without betraying her secret. In fact, poor Mary had never had a secret confided to her before, and having been told by the Wild Man of the West that she was on no account to reveal his real title to their guest, she was in the utmost perplexity lest it should slip out unawares.
“Mary,” said March, who was always stumbling upon the verge of the truth in a most unaccountable way, without actually getting hold of it, “have you ever seen the Wild Man of the West?”
“Yes,” replied the girl with a gay smile.