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Updated: May 16, 2025
So they impatiently watched the passing of the hours that brought him nearer to them, and beguiled the time by talking of him. Major Hester told the story of Songa and Mahng, and how the life of the former had been saved by the baby Donald. With infinite zest he recalled the kick with which he had repelled Mahng's attack on the young Ottawa chief, who was now known to all men as Pontiac.
Pretty soon he glanced out on the lake again, and saw Mahng's wife sitting quietly on the water, just out of range. "Hope she won't stay away till they get cold," he thought, and went on his way across the swamp. The loon watched him till he passed out of sight, and then she swam in to the beach and pushed herself up her narrow runway to her old place. The eggs were still warm.
Something attracted his attention one afternoon when he was swimming on a little lake far up in the Canadian wilderness a small red object that kept appearing and disappearing in a very mysterious fashion among the bushes that lined the beach. Mahng's bump of curiosity was large and well developed, and he gave one of his best laughs and paddled slowly in toward the shore.
During the next two or three days Mahng's voice was frequently to be heard, apparently calling his wife. Sometimes it was a mournful, long-drawn cry "Hoo-WOOOO-ooo" that might have been heard a mile away a cry that seemed the very essence of loneliness, and that went right down where you lived and made you feel like a murderer.
She had her children to take care of, and for a time she was very busy, but after a few weeks they flew away to the south, as Mahng's had done, and she was free to go where she liked and do what she pleased. For a while she stayed where she was, like a sensible person. Minnesota suited her very well, and she was in no hurry to leave.
No, not if he, alone and unarmed, were forced to battle for her with a score of Mahng's treacherous followers. So thinking, he sprang down the steep trail with a reckless disregard of everything save the necessity of gaining its further end with all possible speed. Less than a minute had elapsed since he first caught sight of Mahng.
This demand was refused with such indignant scorn that Mahng's evil face became black with fury; and, though he strode from Pontiac's presence in silence, his heart was filled with rage. This was intensified a few days later when the Ottawa chief upbraided him, and charged him with superstitious cowardice for aiding the escape of a white prisoner who had been condemned to death.
"I did nothing worthy of thanks, Ah-mo, my sister," answered Donald, bitterly, "and now that Edith is again lost to me, I feel that I have done worse than nothing. But tell me of her. Is she well? and what treatment does she receive at the hands of Mahng's ruffians?"
Instead of so doing, he sent word to Major Hester that no gift, save that of his life's blood, would ever atone for the insult of that kick, nor wipe out the enmity between them. "So be it, then, if he will have it so," replied the soldier, with a light laugh, when this was reported to him; but his wife turned pale and trembled as she recalled the undying hate expressed by Mahng's scowling face.
Half an hour later the trapper stepped out of the bushes beside the pond, and caught sight of Mahng's head sticking out of the water. He was considerably astonished, but he promptly laid hold of the chain and drew bird, trap, and all up onto the bank, and then he sat down on a log and laughed till the echoes went flying back and forth across the pond.
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