"Why, have I changed so much?" he cried. "Hugh didn't seem to know me, either." His voice was gay, friendly, even affectionate, but his eyes danced with strange lights that puzzled the girl.
"Of course I knew you," she faltered, paling a little but gathering herself rather haughtily--a fact that Erskine seemed not to notice. "You took me by surprise and you have changed--but I don't know how much." The significance of this too seemed to pass Erskine by, for he bent over Barbara's hand and kissed it.
"Never to you, my dear cousin," he said gallantly, and then he bowed to Dane Grey, not offering to shake hands.
"Of course I know Mr. Grey." To say that the gentleman was dumfounded is to put it mildly--this wild Indian playing the courtier with exquisite impudence and doing it well! Harry seemed like to burst with restrained merriment, and Barbara was sorely put to it to keep her poise. The great dinner-bell from behind the house boomed its summons to the woods and fields.
"Come on," called Harry. "I imagine you're hungry, cousin."
"I am," said Erskine. "I've had nothing to eat since--since early morn." Barbara's eyes flashed upward and Grey was plainly startled. Was there a slight stress on those two words? Erskine's face was as expressionless as bronze. Harry had bolted into the hall.
Mrs. Dale was visiting down the river, so Barbara sat in her mother's place, with Erskine at her right, Grey to her left, Hugh next to him, and Harry at the head. Harry did not wait long.
"Now, you White Arrow, you Big Chief, tell us the story. Where have you been, what have you been doing, and what do you mean to do? I've heard a good deal, but I want it all."
Grey began to look uncomfortable, and so, in truth, did Barbara.
"What have you heard?" asked Erskine quietly.
"Never mind," interposed Barbara quickly; "you tell us."
"Well," began Erskine slowly, "you remember that day we met some Indians who told me that old Kahtoo, my foster-father, was ill, and that he wanted to see me before he died? I went exactly as I would have gone had white men given the same message from Colonel Dale, and even for better reasons. A bad prophet was stirring up trouble in the tribe against the old chief. An enemy of mine, Crooked Lightning, was helping him. He wanted his son, Black Wolf, as chief, and the old chief wanted me. I heard the Indians were going to join the British. I didn't want to be chief, but I did want influence in the tribe, so I stayed. There was a white woman in the camp and an Indian girl named Early Morn. I told the old chief that I would fight with the whites against the Indians and with the whites against them both. Crooked Lightning overheard me, and you can imagine what use he made of what I said. I took the wampum belt for the old chief to the powwow between the Indians and the British, and I found I could do nothing. I met Mr. Grey there." He bowed slightly to Dane and then looked at him steadily. "I was told that he was there in the interest of an English fur company. When I found I could do nothing with the Indians, I told the council what I had told the old chief." He paused. Barbara's face was pale and she was breathing hard. She had not looked at Grey, but Harry had been watching him covertly and he did not look comfortable. Erskine paused.