With
faultless courtesy Diane accepted and presently partook with healthy
relish of a supper of duck and sweet potatoes.
The silence of the Indian girl was utterly without constraint.
"I wonder," begged Diane impetuously, "if you'll tell me who Mic-co is?
I'm greatly interested. He taught you about Rome?"
Nodding, the Indian girl said in her quaint, deliberate English that
Mic-co was her white foster father. The Seminoles called him
Es-ta-chat-tee-mic-co--chief of the White Race. Most of them called
him simply Mic-co. He was a great and good medicine man of much wisdom
who dwelt upon a fertile chain of swamp islands in the Everglades. The
Indians loved him.
Still puzzled, Diane diffidently ventured a question or two, marveling
afresh at the girl's beauty and singular costume.
"I am of no race," said Keela sombrely. "My father was a white man; my
mother not all Indian; my grandfather--a Minorcan. Six moons I live
with my white foster father. And I live then as I wish--like the
daughter of white men. Six moons I dwell with the clan of my mother.
Such is my life since the old chief made the compact with Mic-co.
Come!" she added and led the way to the Indian wagon.
"When the night-winds call," she said wistfully, "I grow restless--for
I am happiest in the lodge of Mic-co.
Pages:
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205