gerly to meet
her sire as if she had been an out-and-out white girl. The hunter, as
we have said, rather prided himself in keeping up some of the ways of
his own race. Among other things, he treated his wife and daughter
after the manner of white men--that is, well-behaved white men. When
Moonlight saw him coming towards his wigwam, she bounded towards him.
Little Tim extended his arms, caught her round the slender waist with
his big strong hands, and lifted her as if she had been a child until
her face was opposite his own.

"Hallo, little beam of light!" he exclaimed, kissing her on each cheek,
and then on the point of her tiny nose.

"Eyes of mother--heart of sire,
Fit to set the world on fire."

Tim had become poetical as he grew older, and sometimes tried to throw
his flashing thoughts into couplets. He spoke to his daughter in
English, and, like Big Tim with his wife, required her to converse with
him in that language.

"Is mother at home?"

"Yes, dear fasser, mosser's at home."

"An' how's your little doll Skippin' Rabbit?"

"Oh! she well as could be, an' a'most as wild too as rabbits. Runs away
from me, so I kin hardly kitch her sometime."

Moonlight accompanied this remark with a merry laugh, as she thought of
some of the eccentricities of her little companion.

Entering the wigwam, Little Tim found Brighteyes engaged with an iron
pot, from which arose savoury odours. She had been as lithe and active
as Moonlight once, and was still handsome and matronly. The eyes,
however, from which she derived her name, still shone with undiminished
lustre and benignity.

"Bless you, old woman," said the hunter, giving his wife a hearty kiss,
"you're as fond o' victuals as ever, I see."

"At least my husband is, so I keep the pot boiling," retorted
Brighteyes, with a smile, that proved her teeth to be as white as in
days of yore.

"Right, old girl, right. Your husband is about as good at emptying the
pot as he is at filling it. Come, let's have some, while I tell you of
a journey that's in store for you."

"A long one?" asked the wife.

"No, only a day's journey on horseback. You're goin' to meet an old
friend."

From this point her husband went on to tell about the arrival and
wounding of the preacher, and how he had expressed an earnest desire to
see her.

While they were thus engaged, the prairie chief was similarly employed
enlightening his own mother.

That kind-hearted bundle of s