Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/273

 even eyes, looking up bewildered at the Indian who was telling him he was white. Her eyes dimmed.

"But this which we learned to-night, Barney, helps a lot; your mother came—with you," she added gently, "to the shore there beyond St. Florentin. In April—the moon of the breaking snowshoes," she repeated the poetry of the Indian phrase, "Noah Jo—we may as well call him that—took her in his boat across the channel to Resurrection Rock where he and his wife took care of her. You were born there; in September your mother was sick; but Pauguk did not strike her; what does that mean, Barney?"

"Death; Pauguk is death."

"Yes; it seemed so. She did not die—there, at least. But she went away and did not come back, though Noah Jo waited there until winter—"

"November, he meant," Barney supplied. "He spoke of the freezing of water; that is the Chippewa name for November—the moon of the freezing again."

"I see. And then, as he was a nomad, he went away and took you; he died—now you're coming to affairs you learned from Azen Mabo—and gave you to Azen without being able to tell anything about you but that the ring went with you. We don't know why your mother couldn't come back; or why your father wasn't there; but we know that one of them one—or some one—did everything they could to find you later. They kept the watch on the Rock; they bought the Rock and built the house and kept it there for you—and then, when my father was dead, he found you, it seems, and sent you there; and some one sent Quinlan; but my grandfather had Quinlan killed—we really got quite a lot to-night, didn't we, Barney?"

"I've got," Barney said, his hands still clenched be-