"Did you?" exclaimed Mrs. Eveleigh, while Harwin looked at the young fellow with a new interest. "How did it happen? Tell us about it."
"Yes, tell us about it," cried Katie, turning toward Waldo. But Elizabeth was still looking at Archdale. Suppose the shooting had been necessary, how could he speak of killing a human being as he would an animal, and then lean back and look at Mr. Waldo with a smile on his face?
Kenelm Waldo, on his part, gazed at the speaker in astonishment.
"'Pon honor," he cried, "I never killed a red-skin in my life, or even had a shot at one. Oh, I know now what he means; he is talking of a fox that I shot two miles from his house, one that you ought to have secured yourself, Mr. Archdale. This was the way I did it, the best way."
When he had finished his account, Katie said:—
"I have a plan for amusing ourselves. Let us make every one tell a story, and we'll lay forfeits on the person that doesn't give us an interesting one. Mistress Eveleigh, please begin."
"That is rather arbitrary, Mistress Katie, with no warning," returned that lady, smiling. "But since we've been talking about the Indians, I will tell you something that my mother did once before she was married, while she was living down on the Cape."
"What a pity, Katie, you did not keep Mistress Eveleigh until the last," cried Archdale; "I know she will have the best story of us all."
"You have too high estimation of my powers," returned Mrs. Eveleigh, flattered; "but if I do well," she added, "it must be remembered that none of you have had forty-five years in which to find one."
The story, like a thousand others of that time, was of the presence of mind and courage of one of the early settlers of America, and was listened to with the attention it deserved. All, with one exception, were outspoken in admiration of its heroine.