n then, she felt as if she had stepped from freedom into prison,
cold though she was and half-famished with hunger. Personally, she
would rather have taken her bit of food out under the trees; but the
thought of her Sun Maid was always powerful to move her. She laid
aside the wet blanket, and carried the drowsy little one to the
fireside, where the warmth soon revived the child so that she sat up
on her foster-mother's lap, and gazed about her with awakening
curiosity. Then she began to smile on Abel, who stood regarding her
wonderful loveliness with undisguised amazement, and to prattle to him
in her accustomed way.

"Why, you nice, nice man! Isn't this a pretty place. Isn't it beau'ful
warm? I'm so glad we came. It was cold out of doors, wasn't it, Other
Mother? Did you know all the time what a good warm fire was here? Was
that why we came?"

"I knew nothing," answered Wahneenah, stolidly.

"But I did!" cried Gaspar. "As soon as I saw the smoke of your chimney
I said: 'That is a white man's house. We will go and stay in it.' It's
a nice house, sir, and, like Kitty, I am glad we came. Do you live
here all alone?"

"No. My wife, Mercy, has gone a visitin'. That's why I happen to be
here doin' nothin'. I mean--I might have been to the barn an' not
heard you. You're lookin' into that cupboard pretty sharp. Be you
hungry? But I needn't ask that. A boy always is."

"I am hungry. We all are. We haven't had anything to eat in--days, I
guess. Are those pies--regular pies, on the shelves?"

"Yes. Do you like pies?"

"I used to. I haven't had any since I left the Fort."

"Left what?"

"The Fort. Fort Dearborn. Did you know it?"

"Course. That is, about it. But there ain't no Fort now. Don't tell
stories."

"I'm not. I'm telling the truth."

If this was a refugee from that unhappy garrison, Abel felt that he
could not do enough for the boy's comfort. He could not refrain his
suspicious glances from Wahneenah's dark face, but as she kept her own
gaze fixed upon the ground, he concluded she did not see them. In any
case, she was only an Indian, and therefore to be treated with scant
courtesy.

Mercy would have been surprised to see with what handiness her husband
played the host in her absence and now he whipped off the red woollen
cover from the table and rolled it toward the fireplace. But she would
not have approved at all of the lavishness with which he set before
his guests the best things from her cupboard.