coming to the village was long ago
arranged, still he lingered.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A NOBLE AMBITION.

To the villagers the cause was evident, but why there should be any
trouble or delay in his courtship they could not make out. Of course he
would take Astumastao's aunt to live with them, and therefore there was
no price to pay for the maiden. So quickly and promptly do they
generally attend to these things, that, when matters have gone between
their young folks as they evidently imagined they had between these two,
a decision one way or another is quickly reached.

These simple people do not believe in long courtships. So they began to
wonder and conjecture why this matter was not settled between them.
They were nearly all favourably inclined toward Oowikapun, and were
pleased at the prospect of his marrying a maiden of their village. Even
some of the young men who had hoped to have won her, when they heard the
story of her wonderful deliverance by this fine young hunter of another
village, and observed how evident it was that he had set his heart upon
her, retired from the field, saying that Oowikapun's claims to her were
greater than theirs, and that for themselves they must look elsewhere.

But strange to say, while Astumastao's eyes brightened when Oowikapun
entered the wigwam, and her welcome was always kindly, yet she
skillfully changed the conversation when it seemed to be leading toward
the tender sentiment, and parried with seeming unconsciousness all
reference to marriage. And being, as women are, more skillful and
quick-witted than men, she, for some reason or other, would never let
him see that she appeared to think of him as a suitor for her hand and
heart, and by her tact, for some reason unaccountable to him, kept him
from saying what was in his heart. And yet she was no mere coquette or
heartless flirt. In her great, loving heart was a purpose noble and
firm, and a resolve so high that, for the present at least, all other
sentiments and feelings must hold a subordinate place. And so, while
she did not repel him, or offend his sensitive spirit, she, in some way
which he could not exactly define, made him feel that he must defer the
thing to him so important, and talk on other subjects. There was one
theme on which she was always eager to talk and to get him to talk, and
to her it never grew stale or threadbare. It was about what he and she
had learned or could remember of the book of h