Girl in a Buckskin

fears.” “But where are we?”
    “At the campfire. I persuaded them to let us sleep here. It’s almost daybreak and then we can go.”
    “Go?” At this Becky sat up, feeling strength flow back into her body. “They’re letting us go?”
    “Of course.” Eseck seemed amused at her surprise. “Black Eagle said they would allow no white people in the valley. And so they have made us Indians. The tribe has adopted us.”
    “Adopted us!”
    “Rather loosely, but yes. I am called Indian-with-the-white-scalp and your name—”
    Becky waited. “Yes?”
    “Your name is Little Doe.”
    “Little Doe.” Becky turned it over in her mind and presently became startled as well as pleased. “But Little Doe is surely a girl’s name?”
    Eseck was smiling. “They are much too polite to mention it, but they have guessed from the first that you are not a brave. They find it very funny that you come in man’s clothing, but then, the white man’s ways are strange and amusing to them anyway.”
    Becky giggled. “I should have looked a fool with my hair like yours. Did it hurt a great deal?”
    He shrugged. “T’will grow back soon enough.”
    “And they are truly letting us go?”
    “They are letting us go and we may live here in the valley. They have never had any intention of harming us.”
    “I wish they had told us so,” Becky said with spirit, and sitting up brushed the grass from her breeches. In the east the sky was whitening with dawn and as she watched, she saw a young woman walk from one of the wigwams down toward the river that was hidden by mist. A cur dog rose to its feet, sniffed and then lay down again yawning. From one of the wigwams came a thin blue column of smoke as the first fire of the day was blown into life.
    Eseck had lived in a village like this for five years, she thought. Five years was a very long time—why did he never speak of it?
    “I am beholden to you, Eseck,” she said suddenly. “I thought never to see this dawn. It’s you who brought us here safely and it is because of you they have befriended us. I saw the chief’s face when you spoke to them.”
    Eseck shrugged. “I doubt if they would have killed us. The war hatchet has been buried for many winters in this village.”
    Becky hesitated. “What did they call you up north, when you lived with the French Indians?”
    “They also called me Indian-with-the-white-scalp,” he said quietly.
    “And did you shave your head like that?”
    “Yes.”
    “And did they—adopt you?”
    “Yes.”
    “And were you often homesick, Eseck?”
    “Sometimes.” His eyes were expressionless as he spoke. He might have been speaking to an utter stranger and Becky saw that not even now would he tell her of what had happened during those years.
    She would not ask again. Turning away she began smoothing her hair which had been rubbed with grease, making it heavy but silky to the touch. “I will not faint another time,” she told him, changing the subject. “You may depend on that.”
    He nodded and standing up, stretched himself. The breeze had begun to tear away the mist down by the river and Becky saw a handful of squaws silhouetted against shining water and the moving fog. Smoke from a dozen wigwams drifted lazily to the sky. It would be a fine clear day.
    Seeing the direction of Becky’s gaze Eseck said, “It will be quite all right for you to wash down there.”
    She nodded and walked timidly past the fire and toward the river. Looking neither to the left nor to the right she moved beside the Indian women and knelt at the edge of the bank. The water felt cool on her face and hands and revived her.
    When she stood up one of the girls had walked to her side. It was Dawn-of-the-sky. She smiled and held out her hand, and Becky saw that rolled up in her fist was a piece of deerhide. Dawn signaled to her to take it.
    “Why—thank you,” Becky stammered.
    The girl burst into talk that Becky could not understand, finally pointing to Becky’s tom breeches and to her own slim skirt. Was it to make new breeches, Becky wondered? Then the girl’s meaning finally became clear as she unfurled the rectangle of buckskin and pressed it around Becky. Becky suddenly laughed. Dawn-of-the-sky was not so reluctant as the others of the tribe: she wanted her to have a skirt.
    Strolling up behind her Eseck said, “She does not understand that we are brother and sister. She wants you to have the skirt as a wedding gift.” He turned to