Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/269

 "I wonder why he couldn't give his name?"

"They often find it hard to; that's all the Adleys were able to say," Barney replied. "They can communicate other words—even difficult ones, like some we got to-night—better than names. It wasn't so surprising, when you come to think of it, that she could understand Chippewa words," Barney admitted, considering with himself quite as much as arguing with Ethel. "Probably she could do that a good deal in the way your cousin said. But it was what the Indian told that gave me the start. You see, that expression about crossing a narrow strip of water—It's exactly the one that Asa Redbird uses now, for instance, when taking anything from the shore to Resurrection Rock. Of course, it might apply to other channels, too; but the business about the milk hardly could."

He stood up and, turning his back to Ethel, he strode away, as he had a habit of doing when beset by emotion.

"I didn't tell you about this before, Miss Carew," he said haltingly when he turned back toward her, "because it seemed so trivial. But Wheedon happened to tell me one night last week when we were talking about the Rock, that a long time ago—twenty-two or three years ago—an Indian fisherman used to live on the Rock. Did you ever hear of him?"

"Yes," said Ethel.

"Did you ever learn his name?"

"No."

"Wheedon had forgotten it, if he ever knew; but he told me that he was a good Indian; he happened to mention that one summer the Indian had a baby, and every night he'd come ashore, after he'd seen to his nets, and get milk to take back to the baby."