You stay in the house altogether too much these days.
That's bad business. Nothing like exercise in the fresh air."
Thus in a few minutes Hazel fared forth, wrapped in Bill's fur coat, a
flap-eared cap on her head, and on her feet several pairs of stockings
inside moccasins that Bill had procured from some mysterious source a
day or two before.
The day was sunny, albeit the air was hazy with multitudes of floating
frost particles, and the tramp through the forest speedily brought the
roses back to her cheeks. Bill carried the bundle of linen on his
back, and trudged steadily through the woods. But the riddle of his
destination was soon read to her, for a two-mile walk brought them out
on the shore of a fair-sized lake, on the farther side of which loomed
the conical lodges of an Indian camp.
"You sabe now?" said he as they crossed the ice. "This bunch generally
comes in here about this time, and stays till spring. I get the squaws
to wash for me. Ever see Mr. Indian on his native heath?"
Hazel never had, and she was duly interested, even if a trifle shy of
the red brother who stared so fixedly. She entered a lodge with Bill,
and listened to him make laundry arrangements in broken English with a
withered old beldame whose features resembled a ham that had hung
overlong in the smokehouse.
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