The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires Part 15

Suddenly Barbara raised her rifle. "No, don't show me, Naki," she protested. "I think I can take aim myself." As Bab fired Mollie rose to her feet with a cry. She had seen something brown and scarlet moving in the underbrush on the hill below them.

Bab's shot had missed the target. But did they hear a low moan like the sound of a wounded dove?

Barbara turned a livid white. "I have hit something!" she called to Ruth.

But Ruth was after Mollie, who was scrambling down the hill.

The whole party followed them, Barbara's knees trembling so that she could hardly walk.

There were tears streaming from Mollie's eyes as she looked up at Bab.

The child's arms were around a little figure that had fallen in the underbrush, a little figure in brown and scarlet, with a wreath of scarlet autumn leaves in her hair.

"I have been afraid of this," said Naki, pushing the others aside.

"It's my little Indian girl!" Mollie explained. "She couldn't bear to keep away from us, and at first I thought her the ghost of Lost Man's Trail. I have seen her around our hut nearly every day; but I promised not to tell you girls about her. Is she much hurt, Naki?"

The man shook his head. "I can't tell," he said. "Better take her to the house and see."

At this Eunice opened her eyes. Her lips were drawn in a fine line of pain, but she did not flinch.

"I will go home to my own tent," she protested. "I will not enter the abode of my enemies." The little girl struggled out of Mollie's hold and rose to her feet. One arm hung limp and useless at her side.

When Reginald Latham touched her, she shuddered. Tiny drops of blood trickled down to the ground.

"Give me your handkerchief, please?" asked Bab as she went up to Eunice.

"It is I who have hurt you," she said, "though I did not mean to do so.

Surely you will let me help you a little if I can."

She tore open Eunice's sleeve and tenderly wiped the blood. Naki brought two sticks, and, with his a.s.sistance, Bab bound up the wounded arm, so the blood no longer flowed. "Now you must go home to our cabin with us!"

she pleaded.

But Eunice broke away from them and started to flee. She trembled and would have fallen had not Mollie caught her.

"See, you can't go home alone, Eunice dear," Mollie remonstrated. "And you must see a doctor. The bullet from the rifle may still be in your arm."

Eunice was obstinate. "Indians do not need doctors," she a.s.serted.

But Naki came and took her in his arms. "We will take you to your own tent," he declared. "She will rest better there," he explained to the girls, "and I know the way over the hills. You may come with me. The Indian squaw, her grandmother, will be hard to manage."

"But how shall we get a doctor up there?" asked Grace.

"I will go down for him later," Naki answered briefly. "You need have no fear. An Indian knows how to treat a wound. They have small use for doctors."

"Is your guide an Indian?" asked Reginald Latham of Ruth.

Ruth shook her head. "He may have some Indian blood," she said. "I didn't know it. But this Indian child, where did she come from? And to think her name is Eunice!"

"Eunice!" cried Reginald Latham in a strange voice. "Impossible. Why Eunice is not an Indian name!"

"But it is what Mollie called her," protested Ruth. "And Mollie seems to know who she is."

Reginald Latham's face had turned white.

Ruth felt her dislike of him slipping away. He seemed very sympathetic.

Mollie, Bab and Grace were hurrying along after Naki, over whose broad shoulder hung the little Indian girl. Her black hair swept his sleeve, her broken arm drooped like the wing of a wounded bird.

Once she roused herself to say. "My grandmother will not like these people to come to our tent. We live alone like the beasts in the forest."

But Barbara, Ruth, Grace and Mollie trudged on after Naki. While silently by their side walked Reginald Latham.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WIGWAM

"How much farther must we walk, Naki?" asked Mollie, after an hour's hard tramping. "Surely Eunice and her grandmother must live somewhere near.

Eunice could not have traveled such a distance to our hut every day."

"An Indian girl flies like the wind," Naki answered. "But another half hour will find us at the wigwam. The Indian woman lives in her tent. She will have nothing like the white race, neither house, nor friendships.

She is the last of a lost race. She and the child live alone on the hill.

Sometimes other Indians visit them, those of the race who have studied and become as white men. They have taught the child what she knows. But Mother Eunice, as the grandmother is known, still smokes her pipe by an open fireside."

"Is the old woman also named Eunice?" Ruth inquired curiously. "I do not understand. Eunice is not an Indian name."

Reginald Latham, who was walking next Ruth, panted with the exertion of climbing the hill; his breath came quick and fast. He seemed intent on Naki's answer to Ruth's simple question.

"Eunice is a family name in these parts among a certain tribe of Indians.

But you are right; it is not properly speaking an Indian name. Many years ago a little girl named Eunice, the daughter of a white man, was stolen by the Indians. She grew up by their firesides and married an Indian chief. In after years, she would never return to her own people. And so her children and her children's children have from that day borne the name of Eunice. The Mohawk Indians have the white man's blood as well as the red man's in their veins."

Mollie was walking near Eunice, whom Naki still carried in his arms, and then Mollie would lean over every now and then and gently touch the child. Once or twice, during their long walk, she thought the little Indian girl lost consciousness. But never once did Eunice moan or give a cry of pain.

"Over there," said Naki finally, "lies the Indian wigwam." He pointed in front of him, where a solitary hill rose before them, shaded by dense woods.

"But I can't see an opening there," Ruth cried; "neither smoke, nor anything to suggest that people are living on that hill."

Naki smiled wisely. "The Indians have forgotten much of their father's wisdom," he declared. "But not yet have they forgotten how to hide in their own forests."

"Do you think I had better go ahead, Naki?" Bab queried. "Some one ought to tell the grandmother that Eunice is hurt. Since I am responsible for the accident, it is my place to break the news to her. I will run on ahead."

"Not alone, Bab!" protested loyal Ruth. "You are no more responsible for Eunice's injury than the rest of us. It just happened to be your shot that wounded her. It might just as easily have been mine. How could we have dreamed the child was hiding in the underbrush? I shall go ahead with you."

"Better keep with me," enjoined Naki. "You could not find your way to the wigwam. We have followed the 'Lost Man's Trail.' When we get up to the tent, keep a little in the background. The Indian woman is very old. She cannot forgive easily. It is best that I explain to her as well as I can.

I will go first, alone, with the child."

Eunice stirred a little on Naki's shoulder. "The little one," she declared feebly. "She of the pale face and the hair like the sun. I wish her to go with me to the tent of my grandmother." And Eunice pointed with her uninjured arm toward Mollie.

Under a canopy formed of the interlaced branches of great hemlock trees stood an Indian wigwam. It looked as much a part of the landscape as the trees themselves. The rains and the sun had bleached it to an ashen gray.