"Even so," I replied; "and it is because I think much of Winona that I speak thus."
"Dost some fair maid await across the great sea for the Eagle?" she asked eagerly, changing the conversation with the artfulness of a woman.
I shook my head. "No," I replied sadly, "no one waits for the Eagle—he is alone."
She still sat opposite looking at me, the half-finished moccasin beside her.
"The squaw of the Eagle is in the forest above the head of the river," she said. "Is that why the Eagle walks abroad in the moonlight, when all are slumbering, and sighs to himself until day? Does he love the fair young maid, who is in the hands of his foes?"
"The squaw belongs to one of the Eagle's friends," I replied gently, for the girl did not know that she touched a raw and bleeding wound. "He seeks her for one whom he loves as a brother."
The girl looked at me; plainly she was debating something in her mind. Finally she spoke hesitatingly, and bending forward she whispered in a low voice:
"A sun after the Eagle had folded his pinions among us, there passed up the great river a canoe, and in it a single pale man, with hair and beard the color of the night. He stopped not, but passed on in the direction of the great mountains, towards which the pale squaw had gone. Is he the friend thou speakest of?"
"No," I answered, "he is not the one;" for I knew not of whom she spoke, unless it might be DeNortier. "Did he have a curved nose, like that of thy father?" I asked; "thin lips, and a high forehead?"
"Yes," she answered quickly, clapping her hands, "it is the one."