Fearing her brothers’ wrath Betty had not told them of the scene with Miller at the dance.  She had learned enough of rough border justice to dread the consequence of such a disclosure.  She permitted Miller to come to the house, although she never saw him alone.  Miller had accepted this favor gratefully.  He said that on the night of the dance he had been a little the worse for Dan Watkins’ strong liquor, and that, together with his bitter disappointment, made him act in the mad way which had so grievously offended her.  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, popped chestnuts, 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 appellation 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 entertaining Capt.  Boggs and Major McColloch and several of Betty’s girls friends, after the usual music and singing, storytelling 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, Jonathan, remember that you promised to tell me of your meeting with Daniel Boone.”