American fiction -- 19th century; Historical fiction; Indians of North America -- Fiction
The girl smiled and blushed; then she seemed anxious to ask a question.
In the mean time they left the shed, and took seats, in waiting for the
arrival of Gershom and his wife. It was not long ere the last entered;
the countenance of the wife beaming with a satisfaction she made no
effort to conceal. Dolly was not as beautiful as her sister-in-law;
still, she was a comely woman, though one who had been stricken by
sorrow. She was still young, and might have been in the pride of her
good looks, had it not been for the manner in which she had grieved over
the fall of Gershom. The joy that gladdens a woman's heart, however,
was now illuminating her countenance, and she welcomed le Bourdon most
cordially, as if aware that he had been of service to her husband. For
months she had not seen Gershom quite himself, until that evening.
“I have told Dolly all our adventur's, Bourdon,” cried Gershom, as
soon as the brief greetings were over, “and she tells me all's right,
hereabouts. Three canoe-loads of Injins passed along shore, goin' up the
lake, she tells me, this very a'ternoon; but they didn't see the smoke,
the fire bein' out, and must have thought the hut empty; if indeed, they
knew anythin' of it, at all.”
“The last is the most likely,” remarked Margery; “for I watched them
narrowly from the beeches on the shore, and there was no pointing, or
looking up, as would have happened had there been any one among them who
could show the others a cabin. Houses an't so plenty, in this part of
the country, that travellers pass without turning round to look at them.
An Injin has curiosity as well as a white man, though he manages so
often to conceal it.”
“Didn't you say, Blossom, that one of the canoes was much behind the
others, and that a warrior in that canoe DID look up toward this grove,
as if searching for the cabin?” asked Dorothy.
“Either it was so, or my fears made it SEEM so. The two canoes that
passed first were well filled with Injins, each having eight in it;
while the one that came last held but four warriors. They were a mile
apart, and the last canoe seemed to be trying to overtake the others.
I did think that nothing but their haste prevented the men in the last
canoe from landing; but my fears may have made that seem so that was not
so.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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