“I know you are to be trusted with that or with anything else that calls for nerve. Besides, sooner or later you must know about this Indian. Wait till we cross the bridge and reach the top of the hill yonder, it will be better going.”
The hillside gave them a stiff scramble, for the trail went straight up. But the sure-footed ponies, scrambling over stones and gravel, reached the top safely, with no worse result than an obvious disarrangement of the girl's hair, so that around the Scotch bonnet which she had pinned on her head the little brown curls were peeping in a way that quite shook the heart of Dr. Martin.
“Now you look a little more like yourself,” he cried, his eyes fastened upon the curls with unmistakable admiration, “more like the girl I remember.”
“Oh,” she said, “it is my bonnet. I put on this old thing for the ride.”
“No,” said the doctor, “you wore no bonnet that day. It is your face, your hair, you are not quite—so—so proper.”
“My hair!” Her hands went up to her head. “Oh, my silly curls, I suppose. They are my bane.” (“My joy,” the doctor nearly had said.) “But now for the Indian story.”
Then the doctor grew grave.
“It is not a pleasant thing to greet a guest with,” he said, “but you must know it and I may as well give it to you. And, mind you, this is altogether a new thing with us.”
For the next half hour as they rode westward toward the big hills, steadily climbing as they went, the story of the disturbance in the north country, of the unrest among the Indians, of the part played in it by the Indian Copperhead, and of the appeal by the Superintendent to Cameron for assistance, furnished the topic for conversation. The girl listened with serious face, but there was no fear in the brown eyes, nor tremor in the quiet voice, as they talked it over.
“Now let us forget it for a while,” cried the doctor. “The Police have rarely, if ever, failed to get their man. That is their boast. And they will get this chap, too. And as for the row on the Saskatchewan, I don't take much stock in that. Now we're coming to a view in a few minutes, one of the finest I have seen anywhere.”