I tracked and caught you after all!" I said, smiling through my slight chagrin.
"Is my little brother very sure I did not know he followed me?" he asked, amused.
"Did you know, Mayaro?"
The Siwanois made a movement of slight, but good-humoured, disdain:
"Can my brother who has no wings track and follow the October swallow?"
"Then you were willing that I should see the person to whom you brought food under the midnight stars?"
"My brother has spoken."
"Why were you willing that I should see?"
"Where there are wild pigeons there are hawks, Loskiel. But perhaps the rosy throat could not understand the language of a Siwanois."
"You warned her not to rove alone?"
He inclined his head quietly.
"She refused to heed you! Is that true? She left Westchester in spite of your disapproval?"
"Loskiel does not lie."
"She must be mad!" I said, with some heat. "Had she not managed to keep our camp in view, what had become of her now, Sagamore?" I added, reluctantly admitting by implication yet another defeat for me.
"Of course I know that you must have kept in communication with her—though how you did so I do not know."
The Siwanois smiled slyly.
"Who is she? What is she, Mayaro? Is she, after all, but a camp-gypsy of the better class? I can not believe it—yet—she roves the world in tatters, haunting barracks and camps. Can you not tell me something concerning her?"
The Indian made no reply.
"Has she made you promise not to?"
He did not answer, but I saw very plainly that this was so.
Mystified, perplexed, and more deeply troubled than I cared to admit to myself, I rose from the door-sill, buckled on belt, knife, and hatchet, and stood looking out over the river in silence for a while.
The Siwanois said pleasantly, yet with a hidden hint of malice:
"If my brother desires to walk abroad in the pleasant weather, Mayaro will not run away. Say so to Major Parr."
I blushed furiously at the mocking revelation that he had noted and understood the precautions of Major Parr.
"Mayaro," I said, "I trust you. See! You are confided to me, I am responsible for you. If you leave I shall be disgraced. But—Siwanois are free people! The Sagamore is my elder brother who will not blacken my face or cast contempt upon my uniform. See! I trust my brother Mayaro, I go."
The Sagamore looked me square in the eye with a face which was utterly blank and expressionless. Then he gathered his legs under him, sprang noiselessly to his feet, laid his right hand on the hilt of my knife, and his left one on his own, drew both bright blades with a simultaneous and graceful movement, and drove his knife into my sheath, mine into his own.
My heart stood still; I had never expected even to witness such an act—never dared believe that I should participate in it.
The Siwanois drew my knife from his sheath, touched the skin of his wrist with the keen edge. I followed his example; on our wrists two bright spots of blood beaded the skin.
Then the Sagamore filled a tin cup with clean water and extended his wrist. A single drop of blood fell into it. I did the same.
Then in silence still, he lifted the cup to his lips, tasted it, and passed it to me. I wet my lips, offered it to him again. And very solemnly he sprinkled the scarcely tinted contents over the grass at the door-sill.
So was accomplished between this Mohican and myself the rite of blood brotherhood—an alliance of implicit trust and mutual confidence which only death could end.
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