"
Kitty nodded concurrence. "What is your name?" she asked.
The young savage flashed his quick eyes upon her and dwelt over her
for a space, seeking out, as it were, the motive beneath the
question.
"Neil," he answered deliberately when the scrutiny had satisfied
him.
"Injun talk," Jees Uck interposed, glibly manufacturing languages
on the spur of the moment. "Him Injun talk, NEE-AL all the same
'cracker.' Him baby, him like cracker; him cry for cracker. Him
say, 'NEE-AL, NEE-AL,' all time him say, 'NEE-AL.' Then I say that
um name. So um name all time Nee-al."
Never did sound more blessed fall upon Neil Bonner's ear than that
lie from Jees Uck's lips. It was the cue, and he knew there was
reason for Kitty's untroubled brow.
"And his father?" Kitty asked. "He must be a fine man."
"Oo-a, yes," was the reply. "Um father fine man. Sure!"
"Did you know him, Neil?" queried Kitty.
"Know him? Most intimately," Neil answered, and harked back to
dreary Twenty Mile and the man alone in the silence with his
thoughts.
And here might well end the story of Jees Uck but for the crown she
put upon her renunciation. When she returned to the North to dwell
in her grand log-house, John Thompson found that the P.
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