An armful of pine fagots was tossed on the blaze, and in a whiter leap of light he saw the face of a woman at the other tent--saw her face and for a moment met her eyes before she shrank back--and neither face nor eyes belonged to an Indian. Startled, he caught his mother by the wrist and all but cried out:
"And that?" The old woman hesitated and scowled:
"A paleface. Kahtoo bought her and adopted her but"--the old woman gave a little guttural cluck of triumph--"she dies to-morrow. Kahtoo will burn her."
"The palefaces have killed many of Kahtoo's kin!"
A little later when he was passing near the white woman's tent a girl sat in front of it pounding corn in a mortar. She looked up at him and, staring, smiled. She had the skin of the half-breed, and he stopped, startled by that fact and her beauty--and went quickly on. At old Kahtoo's lodge he could not help turning to look at her again, and this time she rose quickly and slipped within the tent. He turned to find his foster-mother watching him.
"Who is that girl?" The old woman looked displeased.
Early Morn and daughter of the white woman--he would like to know more of those two, and he half turned, but the old Indian woman caught him by the arm:
"Do not go there--you will only make more trouble."
He followed the flash of her eyes to the edge of the firelight where a young Indian stood watching and scowling:
Within the old chief called faintly and the Indian woman motioned the lad to go within. The old man's dim eyes had a new fire.
"Talk!" he commanded and motioned to the ground, but the lad did not squat Indian fashion, but stood straight with arms folded, and the chief knew that a conflict was coming. Narrowly he watched White Arrow's face and bearing--uneasily felt the strange new power of him.
"I have been with my own people," said the lad simply, "the palefaces who have come over the big mountains and have built forts and planted corn, and they were kind to me. I went over those mountains, on and on almost to the big waters. I found my kin. They are many and strong and rich. They have big houses of stone such as I had never seen nor heard of and they plant more corn than all the Shawnees and Iroquois. They, too, were kind to me. I came because you had been kind and because you were sick and because you had sent for me, and to keep my word.