ne? Where did you see Willinawaugh?"

But Fifine had no mind to answer, apprehending the agitation in the
sharp tones, and translating it as displeasure. She drew her
countenance straight in short order, and put a meditative forefinger in
her mouth as she looked up doubtfully at her mother.

Odalie changed her tone; she laughed out gayly.

"Fonny! Fonny!" and she too imitated the Indian. Then exclaimed--"_Oh_,
isn't it droll, Fifine?"

And Fifine, deceived, banged her heels hilariously against the
door-step, laughing widely and damply, and crying, "Fonny! Fonny!" in
infantile derision.

"You didn't see 'Fonny' yesterday. No, Fifine! No!" Odalie had the air
of detracting from some merit on Fifine's part, and as she played her
little _role_ she trembled so with a realization of terror that she
could scarcely stand.

Yes, Fifine protested with pouts and anger. She _had_ seen him; she had
seen him, only yesterday.

"Where, Fifine, where?" cried Odalie bewildered, for the child sat upon
the threshold all the day long, while the mother spun and wove and
cooked within the sound of the babble of her voice, the gates of the
stockade being closed in these troublous times, and always one or more
of the men at work hard by in the fields without.

The mystery was too fraught with menace to be disregarded, but Odalie
hesitated, doubting the policy of this direct question. Fifine's
interest, however, was suddenly renewed and her importance expanded.

"Him wasn't all in," she explained. "Him top-feathers--him head--an' him
ugly mouf!" She looked expectantly and half doubtfully at her mother,
remembering her seeming anger.

"Oh, how droll! One might perish with laughter!" screamed Odalie, with a
piercing affectation of merriment, and once more Fifine banged her heels
hilariously against the door-step, as she sat on the threshold, and
cried in derision, "Fonny! Fonny!"

"Where, Fifine? At the stockade? Some hole?"

Fifine became angry at this suggestion, for had not "Dill" built the
stockade, and would he build a stockade so Indians might get through and
cut off her curls--she bounced them about her head--that Dill said were
"'andsomer than any queen's."

But Odalie _knew_ she had seen "Fonny" at the stockade, and Fifine
contradicted, and after a spirited passage of "Did!" "Didn't!" "Did!"
"Didn't!" Fifine arose to go and prove her proposition.

There at the little spring, so sylvan sweet, so full, yet with the
merest t