Only young George would tell himself over and over:
"Mrs. Evans is going away from us some day, and Lydia will be left
with no one in the world but me--no one but me to understand--or
to--care."

So he scoured the forest for dainties, wild fruits, game, flowers,
to tempt the appetite and the eye of the fading wife of the man
who had taught him all the English and the white man's etiquette
that he had ever mastered. Night after night he would return from
day-long hunting trips, his game-bag filled with delicate quail,
rare woodcock, snowy-breasted partridge, and when the illusive
appetite of the sick woman could be coaxed to partake of a morsel,
he felt repaid for miles of tramping through forest trails, for
hours of search and skill.

PART II.

Perhaps it was this grey shadow stealing on the forest mission, the
thought of the day when that beautiful mothering sister would leave
his little friend Lydia alone with a bereft man and four small
children, or perhaps it was a yet more personal note in his life
that brought George Mansion to the realization of what this girl
had grown to be to him.

Indian-wise, his parents had arranged a suitable marriage for him,
selecting a girl of his own tribe, of the correct clan to mate with
his own, so that the line of blood heritage would be intact, and
the sons of the next generation would be of the "Blood Royal,"
qualified by rightful lineage to inherit the title of chief.

This Mohawk girl was attractive, young, and had a partial English
education. Her parents were fairly prosperous, owners of many
acres, and much forest and timber country. The arrangement was
regarded as an ideal one--the young people as perfectly and
diplomatically mated as it was possible to be; but when his parents
approached the young chief with the proposition, he met it with
instant refusal.

"My father, my mother," he begged, "I ask you to forgive me this
one disobedience. I ask you to forgive that I have, amid my fight
and struggle for English education, forgotten a single custom of my
people. I have tried to honor all the ancient rules and usages of
my forefathers, but I forgot this one thing, and I cannot, cannot do
it! My wife I must choose for myself."

"You will marry--whom, then?" asked the old chief.

"I have given no thought to it--yet," he faltered.

"Yes," said his mother, urged by the knowing heart of a woman,
"yes, George, you have thought of it."

"Only this hour," he answered,