“I’m glad to be so unexpectedly useful,” said Betty, with a laugh.
When she had thus aided her half-helpless companions, Betty returned the knife to its owner, who received it with a dignified inclination of the head. She then filled a mug with soup, and went to Tom, who lay on a deerskin robe, gazing at her in rapt admiration, and wondering when he was going to awake out of this most singular dream, for, in his weak condition, he had taken to disbelieving all that he saw.
“And yet it can’t well be a dream,” he murmured, with a faint smile, as the girl knelt by his side, “for I never dreamed anything half so real. What is this—soup?”
“Yes; try to take a little. It will do you good, with God’s blessing.”
“Ah, yes, with God’s blessing,” repeated the poor youth, earnestly. “You know what that means, Betty, and—and—I think I am beginning to understand it.”
Betty made no reply, but a feeling of profound gladness crept into her heart.
When she returned to the side of her father she found that he had finished supper, and was just beginning to use his pipe.
“When are you going to tell me, Paul, about the—the—subject we were talking of on our way here?” asked Fred, who was still devoting much of his attention to a deer’s rib.
“I’ll tell ye now,” answered Paul, with a short glance at the Indian chief, who still sat, profoundly grave, in the dreamland of smoke. “There’s no time like after supper for a good pipe an’ a good story—not that what I’m goin’ to tell ye is much of a story either, but it’s true, if that adds vally to it, an’ it’ll be short. It’s about a brave young Indian I once had the luck to meet with. His name was Oswego.”
At the sound of the name Unaco cast a sharp glance at Bevan. It was so swift that no one present observed it save Bevan himself, who had expected it. But Paul pretended not to notice it, and turning himself rather more towards Fred, addressed himself pointedly to him.