She fancied a dark shadow flitted across her husband's brow. He made no
reply; and, on repeating the question, said angrily, "How should I
know? 'Tis as well to ask for a bear's reasons as an Injin's."

Tom only staid at home long enough to mend the broken window, and plant
a small spot of Indian corn, and then again set out, telling Susan not
to expect him home in less than a month. "If that squaw comes this way
agin," he said, "as may be she will, just put out any victuals you've
a-got for the poor crittur; though may be she wont come, for they Injins
be onkimmon skeary." Susan wondered at his taking an interest in the
woman, and often thought of that dark look she had noticed, and of Tom's
unwillingness to speak on the subject. She never knew that on his last
hunting expedition, when hiding some skins which he intended to fetch on
his return, he had observed an Indian watching him, and had shot him,
with as little mercy as he would have shown to a wolf. On Tom's return
to the spot, the body was gone; and in the soft, damp soil was the mark
of an Indian squaw's foot; and by its side, a little child's. He was
sorry then for the deed he had done; he thought of the grief of the poor
widow, and how it would be possible for her to live until she could
reach her tribe, who were far, far distant, at the foot of the Rocky
Mountains; and now to feel, that, through his means, too, she had lost
her child, put thoughts into his mind that had never before found a
place there. He thought that one God had formed the red man as well as
the white--of the souls of the many Indians hurried into eternity by his
unerring rifle; and they, perhaps, were more fitted for their "happy
hunting grounds," than he for the white man's heaven. In this state of
mind, every word his wife had said to him seemed a reproach, and he was
glad again to be alone, in the forest, with his rifle and his hounds.

The afternoon of the third day after Tom's departure, as Susan was