At War with Pontiac by Kirk Munroe (best book reader txt) π
"I pray God, Graham, that it may be terminated," replied Mrs. Hester, fervently, as she took the child from its father's arms and strained him to her bosom.
The whole of this dramatic scene had transpired within the space of a few minutes, and when the men approached to lift the prostrate Indian they found him so recovered from his exhaustion as to be able to stand, and walk feebly with the aid of some support.
Major Hester's first duty, after conveying his wife and child to the shelter of the blockhouse, was to visit the guest so strangely thrust upon his hospitality and inquire into his condition. He found him lying on a pallet of straw, over which a blanket had been thrown, and conversing with Truman Flagg in an Indian tongue unknown to the proprietor. The hunter was bathing the strang
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"Who is she?" he asked of a young officer standing beside him.
"Who? Oh! The girl the general is so taken with? The belle of the evening? The sensation of the hour? Surely you don't need to be told who she is?"
"But I do," replied Donald, impatiently; "for I have only just come."
"Ah! Well then, she isβTo tell you the truth, I don't know exactly who she is, except that she is an Indian princess from the far west, and some say that she is the daughter of Pontiac himself. But she was educated in France, and all that sort of thing, you know. They say she is worthβ" Here the speaker paused, for his listener had departed.
Shortly afterwards, Donald Hester was the most envied man in the room; for the beauty of the ball was leaning on his arm, smiling up in his face and talking to him with all the familiarity of old acquaintanceship.
"Lucky dog, that Hester!" remarked one dapper youth to another.
"Yes. They say she once saved him from the stake or something of the kind, and that he has her monogram tattooed on his arm, don't you know? Romantic, awfully."
Out on a broad veranda, from which they could see a flood of moon silver flecking the waters of the bay, Donald was asking Ah-mo many questions. How did she happen to be there? Where had she come from? Why had he not known of her arrival sooner? Did she know that Edith was to be married? Why had she left them so mysteriously and unkindly on the Muskingum the year before?
To these the girl made answer that she had come from Oswego with her kind friend, Madam Bullen, to be bridesmaid at the wedding of her dear friend, Edith Hester.
"So that is Edith's mystery!" cried Donald, who had tried in vain to find out who was to act in that capacity on the morrow.
"Possibly," assented Ah-mo, with the dear rippling laugh that had haunted the young ensign ever since he first heard it on the far-away Detroit. "And now, Mr. Hester, thatβ"
"Mister Hester? It was not Mister Hester on the banks of the Wisconsin, Ah-mo."
"But that was a year and more ago. Besides, you were not in uniform, then. Do you know I don't think I like you in a red coat, half so well as in buckskin?"
"If it were possible I would discard it this moment," cried Donald, "and I promise you, that after this night, I will never wear it again. But, speaking of dress, Ah-mo, while you are beautiful beyond description in this silken robe, I can't but think that you were still more so in the fawn skin and fur dress that Atoka and I helped you make in Beaver Castle."
So they talked of what had been and what was to be, and of Donald's plans for Tawtry House, until suddenly he said:β
"And now, Ah-mo, I want to ask you the most important question of all. Will youβI mean, can youβ"
"Come in to supper," interrupted Paymaster Bullen, bustling out on the veranda at that moment. "Who is it? You, Donald, and you, Ah-mo, my dear girl? Why, there won't be a bite left, if you don't hurry. Never saw such feeders in my life. 'Pon honor, I never did."
"And I didn't have a chance to ask my question," whispered Donald, disconsolately.
"Perhaps you will have a better chance the next time we meet," replied Ah-mo, mischievously.
On the following day came the wedding, with the genuine sensation of an Indian princess as bridesmaid, and opinion was evenly divided as to which was the loveliest,βshe, or the bride herself.
On the day after, when Donald called at the Bullens', with his question trembling on his lips, he was astounded and bewildered to learn that Ah-mo had left the evening before on a swift-sailing sloop for Albany. From there she would hasten to Oswego and rejoin her father, who only awaited her coming to start for his distant western home.
"But, sir," said "Tummas," who in all the glory of a gorgeous new livery, had just opened the door, "the young lady left a note for you, hand 'ere it is."
Hastily tearing open the dainty billet thus handed him, Donald read:β
"If your question concerns the belle of a New York ball-room, it had best remain unasked. If it is intended for a simple Indian girl, it had best be asked among the lodges of her people."
A month later the question was asked, and answered very much to Donald's satisfaction; while he, clad in buckskin, and Ah-mo dressed as were the other girls of her tribe, drifted in a canoe on the placid surface of the Detroit river. They were married in the quaint little chapel of the fort, and, as Pontiac gave his beautiful daughter into the arms of him, who was now become doubly his son, he said:β
"May the Great Spirit, the All-seeing Eye of the Magic Circle, who looks alike upon his red children of the forest, and his white children from beyond the salt waters, forever bless this union of the Totem of the Beaver with the Totem of the Bear."
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