He exerted himself to win her forgiveness. Betty was always
tender-hearted, and though she did not trust him, she said
they might still be friends, but that that depended on
his respect for her forbearance. Miller had promised he
would never, refer to the old subject and he had kept, his
word.

Indeed Betty welcomed any diversion for the long winter
evenings. Occasionally some of the young people visited
her, and they sang and danced, roasted apples, opped chest-
nuts, and played games. Often Wetzel and Major McColloch
came in after supper. Betty would come down and sing for
them, and afterward would coax Indian lore and woodcraft
from Wetzel, or she would play checkers with the Major.
If she succeeded in winning from him, which in truth was not
often, she teased him unmercifully. When Col. Zane and
the Major had settled down to their series of games, from
which nothing short of Indians could have diverted them,
Betty sat by Wetzel. The silent man of the woods, an ap-
pellation the hunter had earned by his reticence, talked for
Betty as he would for no one else.

One night while Col. Zane, his wife and Betty were enter-
taining Capt. Boggs and Major McColloch and several of
Betty's girls friends, after the usual music and singing, story-
telling became the order of the evening. Little Noah told of
the time he had climbed the apple-tree in the yard after a
raccoon and got severely bitten.

"One day," said Noah, "I heard Tige barking out in the
orchard and I ran out there and saw a funny little fur ball
up in the tree with a black tail and white rings around it. It
looked like a pretty cat with a sharp nose. Every time Tige
barked the little animal showed his teeth and swelled up his
back. I wanted him for a pet. I got Sam to give me a sack
and I climbed the tree and the nearer I got to him the farther
he backed down the limb. I followed him and put out the
sack to put it over his head and he bit me. I fell from the
limb, but he fell too and Tige killed him and Sam stuffed
him for me."

" Noah, you are quite a valiant hunter," said Betty. "Now,

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