Girl in a Buckskin

wolves to be seen. She gave them venison and nookick for their pouches and saw them leave from the door of the cave. Her heart was heavy when she went inside again. In truth she was frightened of what Redfoot and Aupaumut might discover.
    They were gone two days and when they returned they filed silently into the cave, looking around them with deep curiosity. She fed them hotchpot and hasty pudding sweetened with wild honey and waited with great patience for them to speak. When at last they were ready to talk she found that her hands were trembling.
    “We follow trail,” Redfoot told her gravely. “We follow it to Indian trail north of here. Tracks of Indian-with-the-white-scalp plain for long way. Then tracks vanish.” Becky stared at him. “You mean—there was nothing, nothing at all?”
    “No sign. Trail vanish like smoke.”
    “Where did it vanish?”
    “I tell you. At place where Indian-with-the-white-scalp’s trail meet Indian trail.”
    Becky closed her eyes: he meant the trail north—to Canada. “But surely there was something,” she said, opening her eyes. “Some little sign. Did he go north, or south? Were there tracks of other men? Were there signs of fight?” Patiently Redfoot began at the beginning. “No snow since full of moon. We follow tracks easily. We find Indian trail covered with snow but marks on trees show us it is there. No one walk the Indian trail since last snow. No sign of any man. I go north all night, Aupaumut go south. Nothing. Tracks vanish like smoke.”
    “He may have been captured by French Indians,” she whispered.
    Redfoot shrugged. “Maybe.”
    “Or—” But she could not put her second thought into words. “Do you think he is still alive?” she said instead, leaning forward.
    Redfoot shrugged but Aupaumut said suddenly, “We saw no death. Indian-with-the-white-scalp cover tracks himself.”
    Becky stared at him with stricken eyes, angry at him for putting her own thought into words, but knowing very well how Eseck could disappear when he wished to. But he was still alive, or had been when he left the valley. It gave her something to believe in, for as long as he was alive he would come back.
    Redfood saw the tears in her eyes. He said quickly, “ Kee-sogh may bring him home.”
    The sun may bring him home. Becky nodded, and they went out.
     

Chapter Fifteen
     
     
     
    SOMETIMES IN THE NIGHT THE CRY OF A WILD ANIMAL OR the snapping of logs on the hearth would awaken Becky and she would open her eyes to stare up at the ceiling and think of Eseck. If he were truly alive, then where was he, and when would he return? And she would remind herself again that whatever kept him away was stronger than he was for he would not otherwise leave her alone to the wilderness. There was a bond between them of deep, unspoken affection that could never be broken.
    After the first few weeks Becky learned that she must guard her thoughts carefully, for the thoughts of a solitary were not always logical. Her mind became a great high road on either side of which lay baffling, cloudy swamps that might easily lead to madness. She would repeat many times to herself “I am Rebecca Patience Pumroy, I am Rebecca Patience Pumroy,” but there was naught but a sliver of mirror glass to prove that she existed. There was no one to whom she could talk but herself, and a poor conversationalist she proved to be, but she could not abide the silence and talked and mumbled to herself all day.
    One night early in February Becky awakened to hear a catamount snarling on the hill above her, and getting up to freshen the fire she poured herself a cup of tea and sat down at the log table to wait for the finish of the nocturnal quarrel. Her stores had grown very low. There were roots aplenty in the larder but no venison, for she dared not venture far from the cave to hunt. Only that day her snares in the cove had caught a deer and she had hastened out to bring it home, her heart beating fast at the thought of fresh meat again in the kettle. But she had forgotten that the wolves were as hungry as she. When she arrived it was to find a pack of them quarreling over the dead buck and she had weakly leaned against a tree and watched them carry away her dinner. If she had been braver she would have thrown stones at them or shot at them with the musket, but fear had held her back and so she had stood there with tears running down her cheeks and when she stumbled back to the cave she was shaking all over