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Can you bring me a strong knife?" "I bring him to-morrow night, Angleysman." "I will cut a hole in the floor and dig out under the wall." Nesis was not anxious to talk over the details of his escape. "Have you got a wife?" she asked. "Why not?" There was no end to her questions. Finally she said with a sigh: "I got go now. I put my hand inside. You can touch it."
What you think, is that true talk, Angleysman?" Ambrose's arm tightened around the wistful child. "Honest truth!" he whispered. She opened her simple heart fully to him. Her soft speech tumbled out as if it had been dammed all these years, and only now released by a touch of kindness.
She glanced into his face to see if there was any reprieve from the hard sentence. Finally she said very low: "Angleysman, you got go to jail if you tak' me?" "Sure as fate!" he said sadly. She got up very slowly. "I guess I ver' foolish," she murmured. She waited, obviously to give him a chance to speak. He was mum. "I go back now," she whispered heart-brokenly, and turned toward her canoe.
I want jump in river; but the priest say that is a bad thing. "I can' go back to Watusk's teepee no more. If he touch me I got kill him! That is bad, too! I don't know what to do! I want be good so I see my fat'er bam-by!" Ambrose groaned. She thought he was relenting, and came and wound her arms about him. "Tak' me wit' you," she pleaded like a little child. "I be good, Angleysman!"
I'll chance it, anyway. You come with me!" "Oh, my Angleysman!" she breathed, and sank a little limp heap at his feet. Ambrose blew up the forgotten fire and made tea. Nesis quickly revived. Having made up his mind to take her, he put the best possible face on it. There were to be no more reproaches. Her pitiful anxiety not to anger him again made him wince. Her eyes never left his face.
"Goo'-by," she whispered. "I always be think of you. Goo'-by, Angleysman!" Ambrose put off with a heart big with compassion for the piteous little figure he was leaving behind him. His impotence to aid her poisoned the joy of his escape. The worst of it was that it was impossible for him to return the feeling she had for him even though Colina were lost to him forever.
"Shoot me!" she gasped, crawling toward him. "You shoot me! Angleysman, quick! Shoot me!" Her heartrending cries had so confused him, he was seized before he could raise his gun. Ambrose was pacing his log prison once more. The earth had been filled in, the hole in the floor roughly repaired, and now his jailers took turns in patrolling around the shack. Imprisonment was doubly hard now.
Ambrose felt for the little fingers that crept through the slit, and gratefully pressed his lips to them. "Ah!" she breathed wonderingly. "Was that your mouth? It mak' me jomp! Put your hand outside, Angleysman." He did so, and felt his fingers brushed as with rose-petals. "Goo'-by!" she breathed. "Nesis," he asked, "do you know why Watusk is keeping me locked up here?
What does he think he's going to do with me?" "Sure I know," she said. "Ev'rybody know. If the police catch him he say he not mak' all this trouble. He say you mak' him do it all. Gordon Strange tell him say that." A great light broke on Ambrose. "Of course!" he said. "Goo'-by, Angleysman!" breathed Nesis. "I come to-morrow night." After this, Ambrose's dreary imprisonment took on a new color.
Always before that I am think about white men. I not see no white men before, only the little parson, and the old men at the fort. They not lak you? My father is the same as me. He lak white men. We talk moch about white men. My fat'er say to me never forget the Angleys talk. Do I spik Angleys good, Angleysman?" "Fine!" whispered Ambrose.
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