The Indian was evidently touched. Grasping her hand he bent over it and pressed it to his lips. After a long pause, Maggie added: “If you would give up your heathen ways and turn to the Lord, your path would become clear.”
“I once followed the Lord,” said Hemlock, “I learned of Him from my wife, and I taught my daughter to love Jesus, but when the cloud came and its darkness blinded me, I put away the white man’s God and went back to the ways of my fathers.”
“Leave them again?” entreated Maggie.
“Too late: I die as I am.”
“But you are no going to die, Hemlock. You’ve many years to live.”
“I die before the new moon comes; my oki told me so in a dream last night, and that is why I have come to talk with you about Morton. You love him?”
Too honest to utter the “no” that came to her faltering tongue, Maggie’s head drooped and her face flushed.
“I know you do,” Hemlock went on, “and I know he loves you, tho’ his heart has not told his head yet. I know not where he is; if I did, we would attack his guard and rescue him this night. They took him away from Fort Hickory and I have not got his track yet. When they find where he is I want you to give orders to my men when I am gone.”
“This is beyond me, Hemlock.”
“Listen: I have told my Indians they must save him and to obey you.”