"Oh no," said he, earnestly. "I come right over from our place."
"Walked from the reservation in this storm!" said I. "What could have made
you do such a thing?"
"Nothing--just to see you. Not very strange come see two nice women," said
the old gentleman, with a little complimentary bow.
The Panther was somewhat vain of his knowledge of what he called "white
manners," but I never saw a white man who could be so gently dignified, so
courteous, so altogether charming in manner, as the old chief when he
chose. He hardly knew one letter from another, but he had had sixty-five
years of experience in war and council. Many a man "got up regardless of
expense" in college and society might have taken lessons in deportment
from this old Pottawatomie. He had known Minny from her childhood. Her
father's farm had been the first clearing in all that part of the country.
Deacon Adams had always been on excellent terms with the Indians, and his
little daughter had found her earliest playmates among their children. The
Panther had carried Minny in his arms when she was a baby; and as his own
family of boys and girls died one after another, he clung closer to the
child who had been their pet as well as his own.
The Panther was one of those big, soft, easy men who seem made to be ruled
by one woman or another.
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