Now savages are content to begin things in the
middle, and omit questions. It may be indolence with them, and it may
be philosophy. I have never decided to my satisfaction. But the fact
serves.
"Do you think that you were followed?" I asked.
The girl sat up and shook her head. "Only by the stars and the
clouds," she answered.
I felt relieved. "And how did you happen to come this way?" I went on.
"What did they tell you at the Pottawatamie Islands?"
She stopped to laugh. "That you went the other way," she replied, and
she swept her arm to the southwest.
I shrugged my shoulders. "And you thought I lied to them?"
She nodded her answer. "The bird who hides her nest cries and makes a
great noise and runs away from it," she explained. "You told all the
Pottawatamies who would listen that you were going southwest. So I
went southeast."
I could afford to let her laugh at me. "We stopped at that island over
there," I said, without comment. "Now we will follow this shore line
for a distance south. You must go with us. Singing Arrow, did they
tell you at the islands that the English prisoner was a woman, and that
she is now my wife?"
The girl did not answer nor look in my direction.
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