w
pewter dishes and the husband's rifle constituted the happy couple's
worldly possessions. She wished to be nice to me, I could see. She wished
to send me away with amiable thoughts.

"It sounds very interesting," she said. "Father must take me over the
mountains before we return to town."

"Do not ask him to do that," I cried. And I repeated the message sent by
Mrs. Davis.

She was the one person who always had her own way with Ericus Dale. She
smiled tolerantly and scoffed:

"Father's cousin sees danger where there isn't any. No Indian would ever
bother me once he know I was my father's daughter."

"Patsy Dale," I declared in my desperation. "I've loved you from the day I
first saw you. I love you now. It's all over between us because you have
ended it. But do not for your own sake cross the mountains until the
Indian danger is ended. Howard's Creek is the last place you should visit.
Why, even this side of the creek I had to fight for my life. The Indians
had murdered a family of four, two of them children."

She gave a little shudder but would not surrender her confidence in her
father.

"One would think I intended going alone. I know the Indians are killing
white folks, and are being killed by white folks. But with my father
beside me----"

"If you love your father keep him on this side of the Alleghanies!"

"You will make me angry, Basdel. I don't want to be displeased with you.
My father has known the Indians for years. He has warm friends in every
tribe. He is as safe among them as he is here in Salem. And if Howard's
Creek is in danger he can request the Indians to keep away from it."

"Good God! Are you as blind as all that?" I groaned.

"Forest-running, Basdel, has made you violent and rough in your talk," she
icily rebuked. "You hate the Indians simply because you do not understand
them. Now I'm positive that the best thing for you to do is to keep away
from the frontier and see if you can't start right on this side of the
mountains."

It would be folly to argue with her longer. I fished a pair of moccasins,
absurdly small, from the breast of my hunting-shirt and placed them on the
table. I had bought them from a squaw in White Eyes' village, and they
were lavishly embroidered with gay beads. The squaw had laughed when I
told the size I wanted.

"If you will forget these came from the forest and will let me leave them,
I shall be pleased," I said. "If you don't care for them, just chuck them