or both, had returned with their tidings.

Finley endeavored to approach near enough to the group to catch
something that was said, but the chief and his warriors were too cunning
to permit this. Not wishing to interrupt, he seated himself on the
fallen tree to wait until Wa-on-mon was ready to talk to him.

The chief did not keep him waiting. Leaving the warriors, he came over
and sat down beside him, the moccasins of the savage so close to the
curly head that a motion of a few inches would have touched it with his
toe.

The Panther did not glance at the little sleeper, and it would be
unwarrantable to suppose that any feeling akin to pity glowed within
that sinister breast, which burned and seethed with a quenchless hatred
of the people that were trying to drive the red men from their hunting
grounds. Nevertheless, Missionary Finley clung to the belief that it was
Wa-on-mon that had lifted the child from her hard seat on the log and
deposited her so gently upon the leaves that her slumber was not
disturbed.

"Has my brother seen the white hunter?" asked Wa-on-mon, speaking in a
much lower tone than was used in the former interview.

"He parted with him a short time ago."

"Is his heart glad that Wa-on-mon will meet him?"

"His heart flows with joy," replied Finley, with deep depression that
such should be the truth, over the prospect of so shocking an event.

"He will not run away?"

"Did he do so yesterday?" was the stinging question of the missionary,
which struck the Shawanoe hard; "he is so afraid he will not be at the
rock in time that he has gone there to await the coming of Wa-on-mon; he
is there now; Wa-on-mon will find him when he goes thither."

"Wa-on-mon will be there when the sun rises from its bed; he will not
keep the white hunter waiting."

"And the pale-faces that have crossed to the other side of the river
will tarry there till the missionary returns to them."

"My brother speaks with a single tongue," remarked The Panther, thereby
uttering another strong tribute to the integrity of his visitor.

"Does he not always speak with a single tongue?" asked Finley, feeling
warranted in pushing the chieftain, now that the all-important question
had been settled.

"He does," was the prompt response of the fiery sachem, who thereby
plumply contradicted what he had said a short time before.

This, in a certain sense, might have been gratifying to the missionary,
had not his knowledge of India