“Must you go?”

I laughed: “Ka-teri-oseres, Lois.”

“Wa-ka-ton-te-tsihon,” she said calmly. “Wa-ka-ta-tiats-kon.”

Then I gave way to my increasing surprise:

“Wonder-child!” I exclaimed. “When and where have you learned to understand and answer me in the tongue of the Long House?”

“Kio-ten-se,” she said with a faint smile.

“For whom?”

“For my mother, Euan. Did you suppose I could neglect anything that might be useful in my life’s quest? Who knows when I might need the tongue I am slowly learning to speak?� Oh, and I know so little, yet. Something of Algonquin the Mohican taught me; and with it a little of the Huron tongue. And now for nearly a month every day I have learned a little from the Oneidas at Otsego —