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Title: Nat Wolfe; or, The gold hunters: A romance of Pike's Peak and New York

Author: Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

Release date: June 21, 2022 [eBook #68363]
                Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Beadle and Adams

Credits: David Edwards, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Northern Illinois University Digital Library)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NAT WOLFE; OR, THE GOLD HUNTERS: A ROMANCE OF PIKE'S PEAK AND NEW YORK ***

 NAT WOLFE;

 OR,

 THE GOLD HUNTERS.


 A ROMANCE OF PIKE'S PEAK AND NEW YORK.


 BY MRS. M.V. VICTOR.


 NEW YORK:
 BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS,
 98 WILLIAM STREET.




 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
 BEADLE AND ADAMS,
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

 (P.N. No. 5.)




NAT WOLFE;

OR,

THE GOLD HUNTERS.




CHAPTER I.

THE RESCUE.

 "Their black hair, thick and lowering,
   Above their wild eyes hung,
 And about their frowning foreheads
   Like wreaths of night-shade clung.
 'The bisons! ho, the bisons!'
   They cried and answered back.
 The frightened creatures stood aghast
   To see them on their track."


With rifle on shoulder and knife in belt, Nat Wolfe rode along
carelessly, for it was midday, and the country was open. That caution
which ten years of uncivilized life had taught him never entirely
slumbered, and he gave a sharp glance ahead, when, upon turning a
low bluff rising out of the plain just here, he descried travelers
in advance of him. A moment assured him that they were a family of
emigrants making their toilsome way to Pike's Peak. He had seen
hundreds of such during the season; had sometimes aided them in cases
of sickness and famine; and had cursed in his heart the folly of those
men who had brought with them their women and children to share in the
hardships of the journey.

The party he now observed was only one of multitudes presenting the
same general features. There was a stout wagon, drawn by three pairs
of lean oxen at a slow and lumbering pace--probably the last wagon of
a train, as it was seldom that a family ventured upon crossing the
plains alone. If so, the train was out of sight along the track, which
here becomes less monotonous, winding among the bluffs and along the
shallow bed of a river, in which, at present, no water was visible. The
driver had attempted to lessen the difficult task of his team while
ascending a long swell of ground, the heavy wheels of the wagon cutting
deep in the sand, by dislodging the two women and three children from
their seats in the conveyance. The sun was hot, the air languid, and
there were no cool shadows of trees to break the heat and glare of the
way. The two elder children, who were boys, ran on with spirit, but a
four-year-old girl lagged behind and cried, while the women toiled on
with listless, dragging steps. As Nat watched them, one of them stooped
and took the poor little child on her back.

"It's too bad!" muttered he, spurring his horse forward.

The whole family looked back anxiously when they heard the clatter of
horse's hoofs, the driver involuntarily reaching for his rifle, as the
route was one of frequent danger and dread.

"Halloo, madam, let me carry your cub for you," called Nat riding up
and lifting the child from the bent back to the neck of his strong
animal.

There was a kindness in his voice which dispelled fear, even that of
the shy little creature in his arm.

"Thank you, sir."

He looked down at the speaker curiously, for her tone and manner were
unexpected. She was a girl, of not more than seventeen, slender, and
with a face too quickly hidden again by the drooping and uncomely
sun-bonnet, for him to realize fully its peculiar and melancholy beauty.

Nat Wolfe was a hater of Indians and hunter of bison, not a lady's man;
so he rode in advance of the slouched sun-bonnet to the side of the
wagon.

"Another fool!" was his curt, sarcastic greeting.

"I begin to think so myself," answered the emigrant, whose hollow
cheeks and emaciated frame gave force to his disconsolate words. It was
evident he had been sick on the way.

"Pike's Peak, I s'pose?"

"Yes."

"You're late in the season."

"Was down with the fever back to Pipe's Creek; kept us two weeks."

"Where's your company?"

"Just ahead. They're to stop at that little strip of cottonwoods we're
coming to, for dinner. I hope they've found water for the cattle."

"Not a drop. You'll have to press on smartly if you reach water this
evening. The nearest, on this trail, is fifteen miles beyond. I was
over the route yesterday."

"Sho! the teams'll have a tough pull through this sand; they'd be glad
of a drink now."

"What possessed you to bring this little thing along with you,
stranger? It's bad enough for men, let alone wives and babies."

"That's so. But fact is, Meranda's got tol'able used to follering me
about. When I fust went out to Indiana I left her to home in York, and
she won't never be left behind sence. She's emigrated to Missouri with
me, and two years ago to eastern Kansas, and now we're a-marching for
the mines."

"Marching for the poor-house," growled Nat. "I'm a 'rolling stone'
myself, but then I ain't a family man, and have a right to do as I
please."

"Well, the fact is, things hain't prospered with us as they seem to
with some people. We've had bad luck."

"And always will, I reckon," again muttered Nat, taking in at a shrewd
glance the whole air of the man.

They had now reached the summit of the bluff, and at its foot, on the
other side, along the edge of the stunted strip of wood which there
freshened the eye, was drawn up the emigrant-train for a brief rest.
The cattle were not unyoked, nor were there any fires kindled. The
men were eating their cold bacon and hard bread, some lounging on the
ground and some in their wagons. Only one woman was visible among the
party of thirty or forty men, besides the two now trudging along by the
last wagon. Nat did not resign the little girl until they came to the
halting-place, when her father came and lifted her down.

"Won't you take a bite with us?" he asked, in return for Nat's civility.

"Obliged to you, stranger; but I've got a bit of dried buffalo in my
pocket, and a biscuit."

Before dismounting and tying his horse to the low branches of a
cottonwood, the hunter rode along the line of wagons to see if he knew
any of the party. He had lived so long in that region that he was
widely known, having a fame of his own which just suited his peculiar
ambition, and which he would not have exchanged for that of General or
Senator. So, although he was acquainted with none of the faces here,
he was recognized by several, who greeted him heartily, and passed his
name from lip to lip. The emigrants could not but feel braver and in
better spirits when they heard that Nat Wolfe was among them.

As he lounged under a tree, against which he had carefully rested his
rifle, cutting off bits of dried meat with the knife from his belt, he
was surrounded by eager inquiries, asking after the route--with which
they knew him to be familiar--about the water, the feed, the Indians,
the streams, the storms, etc. While he talked, his eyes were constantly
wandering to the little spot of shadow where the young girl was
sitting, patiently feeding the little one, but seeming to eat nothing
herself. She had thrown aside her bonnet to catch a breath of the light
breeze springing up on the plains; her eyes were fixed afar off, on the
heads of bison dotting the vast, monotonous desert, or the horizon,
which ringed it in--except for the care of the child, she hardly took
an interest in the scene more immediately about her. Whether it was
the beauty of her face or its sad patience which touched him, Nat did
not inquire of himself; he only wondered who she was and what she was
doing in such a place. He could trace no resemblance between her and
the thin, sun-burned, care-worn-looking woman by her side, the mother
of the children, but evidently not of the young girl. They surely could
not be sisters, for they were too unlike.

Neither the fierce sun, nor the fiercer wind of the prairies had
spoiled the rich, dark hue of her skin, a clear olive on brow and
temples, melting into a glow on either cheek. The melancholy eyes were
large and dark, and floating in liquid fire--a fire that, however
slumbering and repressed, seemed made to flash forth laughter and love.
Her hair, instead of being neglected, as her present mode of life
would have excused, or "done up," frontier-fashion, in a rude knot,
was woven in glossy braids, wound tastefully about her head. The faded
calico dress, awkwardly fitted as it was, could not conceal the rounded
outlines of her form, any more than the coarse shoes and the wearisome
journey could deprive her movements of their natural grace.

"See if he won't take a drink of this cold coffee, Elizabeth; it'll
fresh him up more than whisky," spoke the older woman, pouring out
a draught into a tin-cup, and giving it to the girl, who rose and
approached Nat with the simple offering which testified their gratitude
for the trifling kindness he had done them.

Too young and innocent to feel the full awkwardness of her position,
in the midst of so many rough men, yet with a demeanor of shrinking
modesty, she passed through the crowd surrounding the hunter, and gave
him the cup.

"Thank you, child. It's just what I wanted to top off this salt meat,"
and drinking the beverage, Nat returned the cup to her hand with a
smile which brought the flush to her cheeks.

"Pretty girl that," remarked one, as she retreated quickly.

"Yes," replied Nat, gravely, "and I wish she were where she ought to
be, instead of in such company as this."

"So do we all," said another, warmly. "There's none of us would harm
a hair of her head--and if we did, that uncle of hers would teach us
better manners. He sets more store by her than by his own children, I
do believe."

"Bosh! he hain't got spirit enough to take care of his own
women-folks," added a third.

"So she's his niece?" queried Nat.

As he threw another admiring glance toward the maiden, he met one as
admiring in return. Safe beside her aunt, she was regarding him shyly,
and with something of interest lighting up the apathy of her expression.

There were not many who could first see Nat Wolfe without being
attracted to give him another look. He had an air of absolute
self-reliance, in which there was not a shadow of bravado; it was the
coolness of often-tested strength and courage; his piercing eyes read
every thing at a glance. Over six feet two in height, he was so lithe
and symmetrical that he did not appear as large as he really was. His
unshorn hair and beard, and his hunter's dress, gave a roughness to
his appearance which was at least both picturesque and appropriate.
Nat Wolfe would not have been himself, without the long boots drawn
over the doeskin pants, the blue shirt, the leather belt, the brace
of revolvers, the knife and the rifle which formed his daily costume.
Perhaps a rifle can not properly be called an article of costume; but
Nat's was to him like his good right arm--eating, sleeping, on foot or
in saddle, it never left his side.

The smile he had given the girl was enough to make her look back at him
kindly; it was a smile which he kept for children and helpless things,
and all the brighter for being rare.

"You'd better be pushing on, men; it's fifteen miles to the first drop
of water; it'll be ten o'clock to-night before your teams can reach it,
if you urge them to do their best."

"I'm thinkin' we had," responded the leader of the train. "Goin' to
ride our way, Wolfe?"

"Well, yes, I'm bound your way, at present. I'd thought to make forty
miles before midnight, but I don't know that it matters. Maybe I'll
keep 'long-side for a while."

The cold provisions were returned to their boxes, the women and
children climbed to their places, the drivers flourished their heavy
whips and shouted and swore at the patient oxen. As usual, Timothy
Wright was the last to get started; and his niece Elizabeth, as she sat
under the tent-like cover of the wagon, looked out forlornly on the
winding array, tired of every thing but of seeing the strange horseman
riding at the head of the company, and wishing he would stay with them
forever.

Yes, forever! that did not seem too long to say, for she was sure the
journey was endless--there was no limit to any thing more--the earth
was like the sky, the desert was illimitable; she should never get
away from that dreary caravan, never see trees or mountains again; the
cattle would never crawl over all that heavy sand, they would never
reach the far-distant Pike's Peak--never see the gold glittering in
heaps all over it--thus the sad thoughts drifted through her mind as
the sand drifted before the afternoon breeze.

Several times in the course of the afternoon, she crept out of the
slow-moving wagon and walked by its side. The prairie was cut up by
deep gullies worn by the spring freshets, and when the great wheels
went jolting down these, it was pleasanter to be out of the wagon than
in it. Although the track was sandy along which they wound, there was
still a scanty covering of short grass struggling up through the arid
soil, and occasional fringes of stunted cottonwood along the banks of
empty streams--mere brush--trees she would not call them who remembered
the magnificent forests of the home of her youth.

"Blast it! I've broke an axle!" exclaimed Timothy Wright, as the wheels
went down a steep rut with a dangerous jerk, and stuck there. "The
whole lot's gone over safe but me. Of course if there's trouble, it'll
fall to me."

"It's our luck, Tim," said his wife, despondently.

"That's so. Every thing goes against us. Hello! hello there! They don't
hear me, they're so far ahead. You run on, Elizabeth, and holler as
loud as you can. It couldn't be worse than to happen just now," he
continued, in a complaining tone, as he went to work to unstrap the
extra pair of axletrees which each wagon carried in case of just such
accidents.

"It'll put us back so we won't get to camp before midnight. Blast it,
it's just my luck."

In the mean time Elizabeth ran on to attract the attention of the party
and obtain help in repairing the damage. She was fleeter of foot than
the lumbering oxen, and the train was not more than a quarter of a mile
in advance. She expected every moment when some one, chancing to look
back, would comprehend the state of affairs and stop.

Suddenly she discovered that the train was thrown into confusion. At
first she could perceive no reason, but a sound as of rumbling thunder
drew her attention toward the south. A vast herd of bison had come
into view, rushing up from a valley which had concealed them, and
pouring down impetuously directly across the track of the train. They
had encountered many of these herds during the last few days, had
passed around and even close beside them; but this vast army had been
frightened by some real or suspected danger, and the electric thrill of
terror which flashed through their palpitating breasts made them blind
to the obstacles in front of them. On they came by thousands, darkening
the plain, shaking the earth, threatening to annihilate cattle, goods
and men. To attempt to oppose their resistless numbers would have been
like flinging feathers in the face of a whirlwind. Forward they swept,
near and nearer, and for a few moments it seemed as if all were lost;
the men did the only thing they could do to save themselves--they fired
their rifles as rapidly as possible in the face of the enemy. The flash
of fire-arms, and perhaps some of the shots taking effect, saved the
train from destruction; the immense horde swerved slightly to one side,
and swept on more madly then ever, just grazing the last one of the
teams, bearing down the wagon and trampling the cattle underfoot, but
only stunning the driver, who was saved by the wagon falling over him.

And now the path of the bison was toward the unprotected girl, standing
motionless with fright, her eyes fixed upon the mighty sea of brutal
life rushing down upon her, terrible and tumultuous. It was as well
for her to remain riveted by terror as to flee, for flight could be of
no avail--she could never outstrip that long wall darkening down upon
her. She felt, through all the cruel pangs of anticipation, their hoofs
trampling her young life into nothingness.

Then there came flying along in front of that rushing host a horse and
rider. While the horseman had to sweep almost the whole line of the
bison, they were galloping directly forward toward the girl, and it
was a question of fearful interest to the lookers on as to which would
reach her first--or whether he and his animal, as well as the hapless
maiden, would not be overwhelmed.

As for her, she did not see him, or if she did, terror had so paralyzed
her that she did not distinguish him from the multitude. Their hot
breath already blasted her, when she felt herself caught up, and unable
any longer to realize the truth, she gave a wild shriek and became lost
to further consciousness of her situation.

When they saw Nat Wolfe stoop and swing the girl lightly up across
the neck of his horse, the gazing emigrants in the distance gave an
irrepressible shout, and again became breathless and silent, watching
the further progress of events; for the herd had gained on the steed
during the momentary halt, and being doubly freighted, the noble
beast could not now run with his usual swiftness. A passion of terror
had taken possession of him also, as he felt himself encumbered, and
the bisons pressing upon him. He reared and whirled about madly,
threatening to run upon destruction, instead of away from it. His owner
bent and seemed to utter a word in his ear at which he sprung forward,
as if carrying no weight at all straight as an arrow from the shaft,
quite in advance of the bellowing monsters throwing up the sand in
clouds along their way.

Suddenly horse and riders went down into a ravine and were lost to
sight, and the next moment the whole excited herd poured over like a
torrent, and were seen thundering down the empty river-bed and speeding
over the valley. As soon as the bisons had passed, the men started to
ascertain the fate of the two human beings probably crushed to death
in the river-bed. As they reached the edge of the ravine and looked
eagerly over, Nat Wolfe crawled out from the shelter of the shelving
ledge on which they stood, shaking the dirt and pebbles from his hair
and garments.

"Hello," cried he, cheerfully. "All right. Hold on, till I hand up the
girl," and he lifted her, just struggling back to consciousness, up to
the ready arms held out for her; then, finding a rift which afforded
him a foothold, he swung himself lightly after her.

"Well, I declare for't, Lizzie, you had a narrow escape--you're as
white as a sheet," cried her uncle, reaching the scene just as she
attempted to stand alone. "I don't wonder you're all in a tremble.
Miranda's so scart she hadn't strength to walk. We thought you was gone
for certain--and we didn't know but we was too. Them brutes came nigh
to giving us a brush--we just escaped by the skin of our teeth. How on
earth, stranger, did you manage to get out of the way?"

"By the merest chance. You see when we went down, my horse stumbled and
fell--but I was too quick for him--I come down on my feet with the girl
under my arms. It occurred to me, quick as a flash, that our only hope
was to press close against the shelter of the bank and let them go over
us. And over us they went in a manner not the pleasantest. I was afraid
the shelving earth above would give way on us, the gravel and dirt
rattled down so furiously. But here we are, safe and sound, aren't we?"

The light and color sprung to Elizabeth's face, as he turned to her
with a careless laugh; she essayed to say something, to thank him for
saving her, at the risk of his own life, from a terrible death, but her
lips trembled and the words would not come. Nat liked to do brave deeds
better than he liked to be embarrassed by thanks; he turned quickly
from the glowing face, and looked after the distant herd.

"Poor Kit," said he, "I hope he has escaped as well as his master. I'd
hate to lose that horse. He and I are one and inseparable. This isn't
the first danger he's carried me safely out of."

"What do you think has happened to him?"

"Well, he regained his feet before the buffalo came over. I think like
as not he held his own--just as the wise ones do--kept with the crowd
and said nothing."

"It's a chance, then, if you ever see him again."

"Don't you believe it--if he hadn't known more than common folks, I
wouldn't have named him Kit Carson. When he gets out of his difficulty,
he'll make his way back here. I'll stay here all night if he don't get
back before dark."

"And that puts me in mind that I'm like to be kept awhile too," said
Wright. "I was just sending my niece forward for help, when that
stampede of buffaloes took place. I've broke an axle."

"Let's set to work and repair damages then, if we don't want the cattle
to go thirsty to-night. By the time we're ready for a start, I hope
your horse will stray along, Wolfe."

"If he don't you needn't mind me. We'll overtake you soon enough if
he does get back. And if he _don't_, I've spent many a night in worse
places than this."

"P'raps part of us better go on," suggested one of the emigrants. "We
can choose the camp, build the fire, and be getting things comfortable
for the rest. It's like we'll kill a buffalo, and have a j'int roasted
by the time you come up."

"I'd advise you not to part your forces," said Nat, quietly. "There's
Indians about, and they're not particularly friendly. But don't be
frightened, child," he added, as he saw Elizabeth grow pale again. "I
don't think they'll venture upon any thing worse than begging. They're
a set of thieves and beggars."

"If there's any thing in the world I mortally dread, it's Indians," she
answered, in a low voice.

"These Indians are not the kind you read about--fierce warriors hanging
to their horses' sides and hurling their poisoned arrows--they're a
sneaking and dirty set of rascals who'd murder you if they dared. But
they won't dare. They're afraid of Uncle Sam--and your party is too
large and too well armed."

The men hastened away to see about the broken axle, while the young
girl lingered a moment, looking at Nat wistfully.

"But you," said she, "will not you be afraid to stay here alone all
night, waiting for your horse?"

"Afraid?"

A curious smile flashed over the hunter's face as he echoed the word;
she read its meaning, blushed, and continued:

"Ah! I know you are afraid of nothing. Yet harm _might_ happen to you;
and I should not like you to suffer from an accident which comes upon
you by saving my life."

"Don't think of it then. I live out-of-doors. I've slept a hundred
nights on the open prairie as many miles from any white man. Good-by,
little girl. I'm off after them buffaloes. I'll have the satisfaction
of killing two or three of them in return for the fright they gave
you; and I may find my horse quicker by following 'em up. Tell your
people I've concluded to go after 'em. If I have good luck, I'll reach
your camp yet to-night." So saying, Nat Wolfe swung his rifle to his
shoulder, leaped down the bank, and started off with long strides
across the lower plain.

An hour's hurried labor sufficed to repair the damaged wagon and
replace the load; the emigrant train resumed its creeping pace, its
weary company finding something new to think and talk about in the
appearance of the hunter among them and the succeeding adventure. As it
grew dark, they kept a sharp look-out, having examined their fire-arms
and put them in order, the statement of Nat as to Indians in the
vicinity giving them some uneasiness.

A new moon, sinking in the western sky, threw a melancholy light over
the wide desert, enabling the drivers to keep the trail and push on for
the water which they were assured was not far away. The heat of the day
gave place to chilling winds, causing the wife and child of Timothy
Wright to shrink down to the bottom of the wagon and wrap themselves
in blankets. But Elizabeth sat by her uncle's side, hugging her shawl
close about her, and looking out at the moon with a tired, home-sick
face.

"I guess you wish you was back to Missoury," he said, looking around at
her, and speaking as if her looks were a reproach to himself.

"I don't know, uncle. I didn't like Missouri very well, either."

"It was unlucky, our settling where the fever and ague was the
thickest. I'd a' done well there, if we hadn't been sick so much. And
then Kansas was a poorly country whar' we tried it--the drought just
discouraged me about that. It's mighty onpleasant for a young thing
like you to be jolting along away out to Pike's Peak. But if we once
get there, the worst'll be over; we'll see good times. You shall have a
silk frock this time next year, Lizzie."

"I hope the gold will come as easy as you think, uncle. Those people
whom we met, day before yesterday, coming back from the mines, didn't
tell us much to brighten up our spirits."

"Well, I will say I was rather set back by their story. 'Twon't do any
good to get discouraged now, though: we haven't provisions enough to
carry us back, nor money to buy 'em. We must go ahead and make the best
of it. Some folks may have better luck than others. I expect we shall
just pick up the biggest kind of nuggets."

"You say you're not one of the lucky kind," she answered, smiling
forlornly.

"'It's a long lane that has no turn'--maybe I'm coming to the turn now.
How's the young ones getting along, wife?"

"They're sound asleep, poor things, without supper."

"There's a fire ahead," spoke Elizabeth; "perhaps it's an Indian camp."

"Nothin' of the kind, Miss," answered a person who had been standing
on the track, waiting for them to come up. "I run ahead and took a
squint, while the teams waited; it's our campin' ground, and there's
another lot of travelers in before us--a train most as large as our
own. They'll be glad of our company, and we'll be glad of theirs. Hope
you don't feel none the wuss from your scare to-day, Miss?"

"Oh no, not a bit the worse, thank you."

"I'd rather them blasted buffaloes had a' run down the hull train, than
to have knocked the breath out of your purty body. I never felt more
like a fool in my life, than I did when I saw the pickle you was in. I
swore and cussed myself awfully for being such a fool as not to be able
to do suthin'. You see I didn't have no hoss, and Nat Wolfe _did_--else
he wouldn't a' got the start of me."

"I believe you, Joe," replied the young girl, laughing.

"I was so mad about it I wouldn't come forward when I hearn you were
safe. I never was so put to my stumps before that I couldn't do
suthin'. But ye see I'd fired both barrels of my gun and the hull load
of my revolver to turn them pesky critters from the train, and when I
see'd 'em making tracks for _you_, I was jest used up."

"It's all right now, Joe."

"Yis, but it goes agin' the grit to think it was Nat Wolfe done it
instid of me. Ain't I the guide and purtector of the train? and it
don't become me to be letting strangers save the women-folks from
destruction. He did it in fust rate style, though; I'll say that much
for him. As long as Buckskin Joe couldn't have a hand in the fight, I'd
ruther it would be Nat Wolfe than anybody else."

"Do you know him?" asked Mr. Wright.

"Wal, I never sot eyes on him till to-day; but I knew him the minit
he rode up alongside. All us trappers and guides knows him, leastwise
by hearsay. I'd often hearn tell of that cut over his eye, and the
queer color of his ha'r. The Injuns call him Golden Arrow, both bekase
his hair is so yellow and bekase he's as swift and sure as a dart.
They're 'so 'fraid of Golden Arrow they cl'ar out whenever they hear
he's about. I knew him by his hight, too. He's sent more buffaloes and
red-skins to their furren huntin'-grounds than any other ten men on the
plains. He fust sends an Injun to the spirit-land, and then, for fear
the dead rascal won't have nuthin' to do in the new country, he sends a
score of buffaloes after him to keep him in game. Years ago, when this
country wasn't quite so thickly settled as it is now and every white
man that tried to lay out a trail over the mountains had to fight them
devils, inch by inch, Nat Wolfe took a lastin' hate to the sarpints,
and he hain't got over it yet. He's a young-looking man now--twenty
year younger'n me--but he's been in sarvice as long as I. I hope that
train on ahead of us has got some fresh meat to spare, for I ain't
bagged a buffalo to-day, we've been in such a hurry. I promise you a
nice bit of antelope for your supper to-morrow, Miss."

The speaker was a small, wiry person, dressed in leather leggins and
woolen hunting-frock, whose profession had been that of a guide for
years; but the trail across the country being now so well defined
and defended as to render his services rather supererogatory, he
occasionally joined an emigrant train for the love of it, when not
off with exploring parties. He was on his way to Pike's Peak with an
idea of his own; his former experience led him to believe that he
could make discoveries for himself in a certain part of the mountains
as yet almost unvisited. Whatever the fond name some proud mother
may have bestowed upon him in the far-off days of his babyhood, to
whatever frontier family he may have belonged, and to whose patronymic
he would have done honor, all other titles were obliterated in that
of Buckskin Joe. Perhaps fifty years of age, with iron-gray hair,
sharp, weather-beaten features, as tough as he was small, supple,
quick, enduring as iron, and ready for all emergencies, he had won
considerable reputation as a guide, and was a valuable acquisition to
our western bound party.

He had taken a great fancy to the beautiful, modest young girl whose
face lighted up the rough company like a flower in a desert; and he
could not recover from the mortification of having, for once, been
caught in a situation where his wit was of no avail, and obliged to
see another achieve a rescue which he was powerless to attempt. As he
trotted along beside the wagon, he presently broke out again:

"It's all-fired mean to think I made sich a fool of myself. I've a
mind to take it up and fight it out with Wolfe; he'd no business to
come meddling with my matters. It was my business to look after the
women-folks."

"So you had rather I should have been killed, than to have any one
else but yourself save me?" queried Elizabeth, with a burst of silver
laughter that sent the blood tingling through his veins. "If you feel
so badly about it, Mr. Buckskin, I'll manage to get into danger again,
and so give you a chance to retrieve yourself."

"I shouldn't wonder a bit if you did, without tryin' very hard, nuther.
I don't pray for it; but if it comes, Buckskin Joe'll be on hand, you
may bet your life. As for _Mr._ Buckskin, I don't know whar' he'll
be--he's too perlite a feller for these parts."

"I beg your pardon, Joe," cried the young girl, merrily, her depression
of spirits quite driven away for the moment by the quaint manner of the
guide, whom she had already taken a liking to.

"Wal, don't do it ag'in," he responded, more disturbed by the civility
than he would have been by a hug from a grizzly bear.




CHAPTER II.

THE STOLEN RING.

 And, dear Bertha, let me keep
   On my hand this little ring,
 Which, at night, when others sleep,
   I can still see glittering.--Mrs. Browning.

 How are ye changed! Ye take the cataract's sound,
   Ye take the whirlpool's fury, and its flight;
 The mountains shudder as ye sweep the ground,
   The valley woods lay prone beneath your might.--Bryant.


The spot on which the first emigrant train had pitched its camp was
something similar to the river-bed where Nat and Elizabeth were
screened from the bisons. A bank worn by the rush of spring freshets,
partially sheltered them from the piercing night-wind, always high and
sometimes disastrous, which rushed down over the Rocky Mountains, and
rolled over the vast prairies with tremendous power. Here the stream
was not yet exhausted by thirsty sands; a few straggling cottonwoods
stood guard over the water, one of whose dead number furnished dry fuel
for a cheerful fire, welcome both for its brilliant warmth and the
facilities it afforded for hot coffee and biscuits, fried bacon and
broiled buffalo-steaks.

The first comers had just finished their supper, attended to their
cattle, and were about bestowing themselves for the night, when the
arrival of the second train kept them up, out of curiosity to observe
their fellow-travelers, and to offer them the out-door hospitality of
the camp.

The cattle, who had scented water afar off, and were frantic to get to
it, had first to be attended to. The corral formed by the first train
was enlarged by the addition of the wagons of the second, the cattle
driven within the ring thus formed; and while a portion of the party
attended to this, the others were hastily preparing supper. Great as
was their hunger, the appeals of sleep were almost more powerful; so
that food and drink were speedily cooked and dispatched.

While Tim Wright attended to his team, his wife and niece were busy at
a small fire, apart from the crowd, boiling coffee and browning bits
of bacon, thrust on the points of sticks, so that the fat of the meat
would drip upon the biscuits toasting underneath.

"Here's a bit of fresh meat, if you'd like it, ladies," said the voice
of a stranger. "It's a piece of young antelope, and will broil in a few
minutes over those coals."

They looked up to accept the gift and thank the donor. He was a
man of rather over middle-age, thin, tall, with dark eyes and
complexion--almost a foreign and Southern aspect--low-voiced, and so
entirely different in his manners from the sturdy men with whom he was
in company, as to attract the remark of both.

"'Bliged to you," said Mrs. Wright. "Perhaps we're robbing you?"

"Oh, no! Our party supped two hours ago, and we have abundance for
breakfast. Allow me, Miss--this way," and in the most courtly manner,
as if he were attending upon a lady whom it was an honor to serve, he
took the two sharpened sticks upon which Elizabeth was endeavoring to
fasten the meat, and arranging it for her, aided her in bracing it
properly over the glowing coals. As they were doing this, the firelight
flashed brightly over Elizabeth's hand, seeming to concentrate upon
a ring which she wore, the central jewel of which burned as the
living sun. As the stranger observed it, he started and muttered an
exclamation under his breath, which caused the young girl to look
up and meet the searching gaze of eyes so piercing that they fairly
suspended her will. It was nothing new to her to have strangers notice
the ring; she knew that it was a strange ornament for a girl in her
station of life to be wearing. The neighbors had always admired it, and
asked the worth of the "pretty stuns," and whether it was "real gold."
All that she herself knew about it was, that when she had obtained her
full growth, so that the ring would fit her finger, her aunt had one
day taken it from a little box put carefully away in the locked upper
drawer of the bureau, and given it to her, telling her it had been her
mother's. She guessed it to be valuable, though she did not dream that
the white and crimson stones so curiously set, and so fascinatingly
bright, would buy a farm and build a house as good as her uncle aspired
to. If she _had_ known its intrinsic value, she could not have prized
it more--it was the most precious of possessions, for it was the only
link between her and the dead mother, of whom she knew and remembered
so little, but whose memory she so passionately adored.

Again the stranger's eyes sunk from the young girl's face to the
slender hand upon which the ring sparkled vividly. He had forgotten to
rise from his half-kneeling posture, or to say any thing in excuse for
his engrossed and absolute surprise.

Mrs. Wright's disturbance of mind consequent upon the tumbling over of
the broiling steak, broke the spell which had so suddenly fell upon the
other two; the stranger re-arranged the meat, and withdrew to the other
side of the inclosure.

When the meal was ready, the children were aroused from their sleep in
the wagon and given a share. Their pretty aunt was hardly as attentive
to them as usual; her eyes kept wandering off into the darkness, as if
they could pierce its mysteries.

The moon had descended beneath the horizon; the stars hung low and
bright over the wind-swept plains--in the young girl's mind drifted
thoughts of the handsome hunter who had that day saved her life. She
wondered where he could be, solitary in the desert, with only that
rising wind for company. She hoped he would find his horse, and follow
on to camp; she would like so much to offer him a cup of hot coffee and
a bit of fresh meat. It hardly seemed possible she should never see him
again.

He did not arrive before they retired. Buckskin Joe came up to the
family, as they were ready for the night's rest, to see if all was
right--as head man of the train, he felt it his especial duty to watch
over the females, particularly the pretty maiden.

"Been a-lookin' out for that yellow-ha'red chap, Miss? I see you, when
you wur a pretendin' to eat. For my part, I'm glad he's staid behind;
not that I don't like Nat Wolfe as a gineral thing, when he don't
meddle with other folks' business. He mought a-known it was my business
to look after the women-folks. I consider it a little uncalled for, his
interferin' with them buffaloes, when I wur about."

"Haven't you got over that yet?"

"You can laugh if you like, Miss. I only hope my turn'll come next.
Howsumever, I jist stepped up to say that you needn't consarn your
little head 'bout Injuns. We're too strong for the cowardly thieves
now; they won't ventur'. Jist you take the soundest kind of a sleep,
so's to feel bright to-morrer."

"I shall sleep like a top, Joe, as long as you're on guard."

"You can jist do that very thing, Miss, as safe as a baby in a cradle.
Well, good-night. The Lord bless and keep you, and presarve ye from the
bite of a rattlesnake!"

This was Joe's favorite parting benediction, bestowed only on his
friends--hardly an idle prayer, either, in that snake infested country.

That night in camp was one of safety and profound repose. No accident
marred the deep sleep of the emigrants. Once during the night, at that
approach to morning when slumber is most enthralling, Elizabeth stirred
in her dreams, half starting from her sleep with a smothered cry. She
was dreaming that a rattlesnake had stung her hand.

The first thing she noticed as she left the wagon in the morning, to
bathe her face and hands in the stream, was that her ring was gone!

A cry of grief and surprise made the loss known to her aunt, whose
consternation was almost equal to her own.

"It was ruther loose for you; may be it's slipped from your finger
while you was to work, Lizzie!"

"No, aunt; I am sure I had it on when I went to sleep. I shut my hand
on it as I always do. Somebody stole it from me in the night. It half
aroused me, but not enough to realize what it was."

"Who could it be?"

"Who could it?"

Some instinctive feeling assured the young girl that the robber could
be none other than the dark and courtly stranger who had scrutinized it
so curiously the previous evening.

"I believe the person that took it was the one who gave us the meat,
aunt."

"Sho, child! he didn't look like a thief. I never seen a prouder or a
nicer-lookin' gentleman. He wasn't one of the common emigrants, by no
means."

"I know he didn't look like a thief. He _looked_ as if he'd sooner die
than do a mean thing. But I can't help feeling as if it were he who
took it."

"I'd sooner suspect some of them rough fellows that have had their eyes
on it for days. And, after all, I don't believe nobody took it. You've
just dropped it off--like as not into the fire. Let's take a good look."

They searched so long that they came near going without their
breakfast, only desisting when they could no longer delay their
preparations for a start. The two trains were to proceed forward
together. The stranger did not offer any more civilities to the women,
but Elizabeth saw him, more than once, with his dark eyes fixed upon
her in intense watchfulness. She felt the impulse to go up to him and
demand her property. Yet he looked so cold, so proud, so self-absorbed,
so much as if the fiery flash of his anger and disdain would strike her
with lightning, that she did not dare.

In the midst of her perplexities, Buckskin Joe came up. He listened to
their story of the loss with silent interest, remaining lost in thought
for some moments afterward, seeming to be turning some problem over in
his mind.

"It's queer," he remarked, presently. "I don't know none of our chaps
that I regards as mean enough to steal a woman's finery. It mought be
somebody in the other train. I'll keep my eye out. Don't ye fret, Miss.
If any feller in these two companies has got that ring, you'd better
believe I'll track it. 'Twon't be long 'fore I'll be on the scent."

"Have you noticed that dark gentleman who brought us the antelope last
night, Joe?"

"Noticed him? Yis; I noticed he wasn't one of the digging nor trapping
kind. I reckon he is a-travelin' for his health. Some of them kind goes
over the mountains now and then."

"I believe he has my ring."

"Snakes and painters!" ejaculated the guide; "I shouldn't have
suspected him--at least, not at fust sight. Guess a wise feller
wouldn't be in a hurry to tell him so to his face. But, if I've cause
to believe that he _has_ got it, you'd better trust me to get it out
of him. That was a mighty purty ring, Miss--it was most as bright as
your eyes; and if I get it back for you, I s'pose you'll be ready to
disremember that when you got into danger yisterday Buckskin Joe wan't
up to the scratch."

The half-deprecating, half-inquiring tone with which he made this last
remark was ludicrous enough, and the maiden burst into a merry laugh in
spite of her tribulation.

"Wal, wal, laughin' don't hurt; but it's sot in my mind that I'll have
a chance to make that up 'fore long."

"I do believe you'd be willing something terrible should happen to me
for the sake of showing your bravery, Joe."

"I'd be willing suthin' should be _just a-goin'_ to happen, jist to
show you how easy I could purvent it," he retorted. "But now the fust
duty in hand is to get an airly start. Be you ready to move on, Wright?"

"Nigh about ready, Joe--only one of my cattle seems about gone up. I'm
afraid I'll have to kill him and leave him behind. It's just my luck."

"It's hard on critters goin' without water so, and half starved too.
There's a couple more used up this mornin'."

"We must take one more good look for that ring," said Mrs. Wright.
"Here, you boys, your eyes are sharp; you look too. I feel dreadful
about it."

"I make no doubt that little thing was worth nigh onto ten dollars,"
sighed her husband. "It oughter have been Lizzie's wedding-ring. It's
just our luck."

The last search proved as unavailing as the first. Two or three tears
dropped from Elizabeth's eyes, as the trains finally moved on, for
she felt as if the chances for recovering the lost treasure were
exceedingly small.

"I've l'arned all there is to l'arn about that dark-complexioned
chap," resumed Buckskin Joe, later in the forenoon, as he dropped
alongside Wright's wagon. "It's just as I thought about his travelin'
for his health. His name is Carollyn--Leger Carollyn, he writes it--a
sort of a furrin'-lookin' name like himself. He's troubled with the
liver-complaint or some other of them woman's ailin's that gentlemen
take to, who are too keerful of theirselves; and now he's tryin'
the nateral way o' livin' in the hopes of a cure. Boiled buffalo is
excellent for dyspepsy--so's cold baked beans eaten with a chip out of
an old stew-pan--and I reckon the Rocky Mountains will scare him out of
his liver-complaints. I've bin noticing him considerable this mornin',
and it strikes _me_ that he's got more on his mind than he has on his
stomach, though he's saller enough to show _that's_ out o' fix. Lord,
Miss, I've never seen the feller yet that could make my h'ar stand on
end--but I'm blasted if I'd like to tell _him_ he's got your ring--that
is, unless I was certain he had; in which case, in course, knives and
pistols couldn't purvent my throwin' it up to him. I'm goin' to keep
an eye on the company ginerally, and make no doubt I shall tree the
thief if he's in these woods. Don't fret, Miss--for leastwise, if we
don't rekiver that ring, we're goin' where gold is plenty, and you
shall have another as purty."

"But it won't be _that_--that was my mother's, you know, Joe."

"Was it now? Thunder and lizards! then we won't give it up nohow,"
responded the little guide, looking fierce, and marching along faster,
for he could not bear to see the tears which sprung into the girl's
eyes--he'd often swore he'd rather face a catamount than a cryin' woman.

The long day's journey was only a repetition of previous days, except
that it was unusually dull and void of adventure. The plain grew
more arid; there was no longer grass enough to tempt the bison; and
no living thing varied the monotony of the way, except the curious
villages of prairie-dogs, living in their sand-huts, and poking their
queer, inquisitive noses out, to squeak and twitter at the travelers,
and make Elizabeth laugh at their oddity.

"Wal, now, it does me good to hear you laugh out right smart ag'in,"
said Mr. Wright, "just as you did before we begun this desperate trip.
You look like our Lizzie now, and not the tired little girl that's
given her uncle the heart-ache for the last few days. If you knowed how
much handsomer you look when you're full of fun!"

And truly if her face was a beautiful one in its resigned, almost dull
melancholy, it was absolutely brilliant with light and color when it
flashed out in mirth.

"I don't see the use of looking handsome here," replied she, with one
of those arch sparkles of laughter beneath the long lashes which were
all the more bewitching for being rare. "I don't care about aunt and
yourself falling in love with me, any more than you are already, and
old Joe is devoted enough to satisfy a more exacting person than I am."

"Supposing Nat Wolfe should ride up with us," said Mrs. Wright.

"Well?" queried the young girl, bending the full blaze of her eyes on
her aunt. Hers was one of those reserved and queenly natures that could
not endure even the well-meaning raillery of others on matters about
which maidens are reticent.

"Oh, don't look at me so, and I'll never mention him again," laughed
Mrs. Wright; and yet, in despite of her coolness, Elizabeth could not
control the deepening crimson in her own cheeks.

Many times, that day, her eyes had searched the plain, hoping to
see Golden Arrow speeding through the distance, his steed bounding
lightly and his yellow hair streaming on the wind, as she had seen him
yesterday.

But when the weary afternoon had rolled to the east, and the company
had camped, in the burning splendor of sunset, on the yellow desert,
with only a half-hidden stream and a little line of stunted trees to
make that spot more desirable than another, she still sat in the wagon,
and looked through the molten air with a sad and searching look, in
vain--Golden Arrow did not come.

While they were at supper, a party of vagabond Indians, some on mules
and some on foot, came straggling about the camp, begging for hay for
their mules and corn for themselves. The very sight of them took away
Elizabeth's appetite: she sat, holding her little cousin, and feeding
her, but she could not partake of the meal herself. Although assured
that these dirty and miserable savages were neither able or disposed to
do harm, that theft was the worst to be dreaded from them, she would
not meet their snaky eyes for the world; she had an innate abhorrence
of the race, such as most persons feel for serpents.

As she sat thus, inwardly shuddering, and looking at nothing but the
child and the cup of biscuit and coffee she was holding for her, little
Minnie cried out and hid her face in her bosom.

Elizabeth felt the shadow of some one between herself and the light,
and raising her eyes met those of an Indian fixed intently upon her. He
continued to gaze upon her, without speaking or asking for any thing
she might have to bestow. He was tall and straight, but otherwise one
of the most repulsive of the party, filthy beyond description and
ragged in the few articles of tawdry finery he had contrived to obtain
for his personal adornment. A bandage of cloth, originally white,
passed across his upper lip and around his head; it was designed to
conceal a wound which he had once received from an enemy in battle,
and which his pride would never permit the eyes of his brothers to
behold. Those silent, glittering eyes burned into the brain of the
girl, so that she involuntarily closed her own, and when she overcame
the feeling sufficient to again look up, the Indian was gone. She saw
him mixing with others of his party, gesticulating, begging, eating
the food given; but she drew a long breath of relief when the whole
pack slunk off in the twilight, vanishing into the wide darkness of the
plains.

The emigrants were not very well pleased with their present
camping-ground; it was unprotected by any bluff, or even river-ledge,
from the searching winds which were certain to blow at night, and which
were all the more uncomfortable because of the heat and glare of the
day. When this wind was high, it mocked the protection even of the
covered wagons, whistling through every cranny, making the children
shiver and the men wakeful, despite of blankets.

On this night, as if aware of the confusion it would cause to the
adventurous intruders upon solitudes it had long held possession
of as its own, it came along more wrathfully than they had thus far
experienced it. By midnight it had roused itself into a hurricane.
Accustomed to the wild, unbroken sweep of these mighty plains, it
rushed on, holding its sublime revel as heedless of the little
encampment as of a feather in its path. Elizabeth was wide awake,
sitting up in the wagon listening to the awful music, trembling with
fear and cold; Mrs. Wright was wide awake, too; and her husband was
leaning over the sleeping children as if he could protect them from the
threatening storm.

Suddenly, with a roar as of a thousand waterfalls, the wind
strengthened and whirled by, scattering the encampment almost to
destruction. Wagons were tilted over and lifted bodily, their coverings
rent into shreds, and their contents impartially disposed of. The
accident was the more frightful because of the impenetrable darkness.
The lowing of terrified cattle, and the shouts of the emigrants,
mingled with the fury of the gale. There was no means of ascertaining
the extent of the damage, except as the party could get together in
the darkness. It was impossible to light fires; and for two hours they
could not even obtain the light of a lantern. When this was done, they
found one poor fellow killed outright by a blow on the temple from
some flying object, and another groaning with a broken leg, unable to
extricate himself from the wagon which had done the injury.

"Who in thunder's goin' to tend to this job?" muttered Buckskin Joe,
as the sufferer was released from his trying position, and his limb
examined by several who had gathered to his aid.

"I will," said a calm, decided voice, and looking up, he saw Mr.
Carollyn, the gentleman whom he had favored with his morning's
observations; he already had the injured leg in his grasp, and was
handling it with the skill of a practiced surgeon. With the assistance
of those whom he chose to aid him, he soon had the limb set and
splintered, and the wounded man lying in comparative comfort upon a
mattress of blankets spread behind the shelter of an overturned wagon.
The violence of the wind had abated, so that there was nothing more to
fear from it, though it still blew too wild and chilly for ease.

While they were yet in attendance upon the sufferer, Mrs. Wright made
her way to Buckskin Joe, guided by the glimmer of the lantern.

"I can't find 'Lizabeth," she panted, catching his sleeve.

"Can't find her?--what's happened to her?"

"Wal, I'm sure I've no idea myself. I wish I had. You see the wind
upset us; but it didn't do much harm, but to bruise us up considerable.
Jem's got a bump on his forrid, and Will's nose is bleedin'--"

"But where in thunder's the gal?"

"Wal, as I was saying, we don't know. You see we all crawled out,
after the wagon upset. I'm sure 'Lizabeth got out safe--she helped
Minnie out 'fore I went myself; we all kept hold of hands, and stooped
down behind the wagon as well as we could to keep the wind from blowin'
us clear away. I guess it must have took her, for she didn't answer
to our call, and she isn't nowhere very nigh--that's certain. It was
awful--the wind was--and there's the children nigh about froze. I
wish Timothy had staid to Missouri," and the poor woman's long-tried
fortitude gave way, and she began to cry.

The stranger who had been busy about the broken limb, here turned
abruptly to her, and asked:

"Have you searched with a light? Perhaps the cattle have trampled on
her, or she is hurt in some way, so as not to be able to call out."

"The Lord forbid!" muttered Buckskin Joe.

"The wind took our lantern, I s'pose; we can't find it," said Mrs.
Wright.

"Wal, I'm a-goin' for to find that gal," said Joe, catching up his
lantern. "Let the traps go to darnation--the gal's worth more'n the
hull lot. 'Sides, I've promised to be on hand next time she got into
danger."

"You go in one direction, making the circuit of the camp, as near as
you can guess it, and I will go the other until we meet," said the
stranger. "It's impossible to make a fire just yet; but this wind will
subside within an hour, so that we can then build one. If any one of
the party are lost in the darkness, it will serve to light them back.
Fortunately there is nothing to be feared from the desert, that I know
of; and, unless she has been injured by flying missiles, the young lady
is probably safe, and not very far off."

He said this with the cool decision which marked his general manner,
yet the quick eye of the guide detected an uneasiness and paleness of
countenance, caused either by his interest in the girl, and fear for
her, or by the excitement of the scene he had just passed through.

So completely had the corral been broken and the camp scattered, that
it was difficult to trace its exact position, or to tell just where
it would be wisest to search for the missing girl. After an hour's
wandering, assisted also by many others, the two men met, with no
tidings. The wind having lulled, it was proposed to build a bright
fire, in the hope that it would guide her back. This was done; the
blaze streamed up vividly, enabling the emigrants to work with more
certainty amid the ruins of their property. But no clue was obtained to
the accident which had befallen Elizabeth.

Daylight brought to view a pitiable state of affairs. Two days of hard
labor would barely enable the trains to proceed. Much property was
irretrievably lost--literally scattered to the winds. There was the
body of one--who yesterday was one of their number, full of health
and hope--now waiting its lonely burial beneath a stunted tree of the
desolate plain. There was the injured man, to whom the rest of the
journey must be a lingering and painful one. And, saddest perhaps of
all, was the strange and total disappearance of the pride and star of
the company--the sweet young maiden whose face had been like a memory
of home to the roughest.

"This is what I should call suthin' of a pickle," soliloquized Buckskin
Joe, leaning on his rifle, and looking off toward the rising sun,
scratching his head instinctively to assist his thoughts; "if thar'
had been sand enough lyin' about loose to swaller her up, or rivers,
or woods, or even a Red River alligator, I should know where to look.
Blast it! if it wur only an alligator, I'd fetch her out and bring
her to--blast me, if I wouldn't! But I'm free to own that I'm mighty
onsartain which way to look, cause all parts of the compass is 'zactly
alike, and thar' ain't a mark so much as a blade o' grass for a sharp
feller to fix his attention to. Now, if it wur the thickest woods that
ever growed, and she'd bin stole by the slyest Injun, I'd have more
hopes. 'Cause there'd be a bended twig, or a footstep in the leaves,
or a bit of caliker on a bush, or _suthin_'. I can't see what could
a' took her, lest the wind actually carried her off, which it mought
do easy enough, for she was a light little critter--so purty--and if
it did, it must have sot her down hard enough to take the breath out
everlastingly." Here he fell into a fit of silent abstraction.

"What are you thinking about?"

It was the dark stranger who startled the guide out of his reverie, by
the abruptly-put question. The person addressed gave him a quick, keen
look, before he answered:

"I was just thinkin' that some o' them pesky Injuns _may_ have been
sneaking about, stealing things last night, when the storm came up.
They _may_ have carried off the girl, under cover of the hurrycane,
which they wouldn't a' done at a safer time. 'Tain't likely, but it's
the only thing I can think of."

"I am afraid of it myself. Do you know what direction they would be
most likely to take, in such a case?"

"Wal--yis! I rather guess I know some o' their lurkin places, stranger.
I know all the whereabouts purty much of that tribe that paid us a
visit yesterday. By jingo, stranger, I'm off! I'll just put some
biscuits and buffalo in my pocket, and be off. This train will have to
stop here a couple o' days, sartain; and if I ain't back by that time
they can proceed without me--that's all. Wish I had a hoss--but I must
make a mule do."

"Not so," said the stranger. "I own two horses in my company. You shall
have one, I will take the other, and we will go together."

"You?" queried Buckskin Joe, in surprise.

"Yes. I am traveling for adventure, and what more novel adventure could
I expect than to go after a lost maiden in company of the best guide
this side of Kit Carson? Don't think I'll be a drawback to you. I'm an
excellent shot."

"The sight of danger won't make _you_ narvous, I'll be bound," said the
guide, measuring the cool air and clear eye of his companion with a
favorable glance.

Barely waiting for the needed refreshment of a cup of hot coffee, the
two men, thus curiously thrown together on a doubtful venture, started
out over the illimitable plain, burdened only with their weapons and a
light wallet of provisions, and followed by the anxious eyes and hearts
of the emigrants.




CHAPTER III.

DR. CAROLLYN'S BRIDE.

 Love me with thy voice, that turns
   Sudden faint above me;
 Love me with thy blush, that burns
   When I murmur, _Love me!_--Mrs. Browning.

 A man had given all other bliss,
 And all his worldly worth for this,
 To waste his whole heart in one kiss
         Upon her perfect lips.--Tennyson.


Nearly seventeen years before the emigrants of 1860 started on their
long journey for Pike's Peak, a young physician of New York was one
winter twilight making his way up-town, after a fatiguing round of
visits, the number of which was evidence of his rising reputation. His
elastic step betrayed health and spirits which no ordinary weariness
could depress--indeed, there was a joyous eagerness in his manner which
might almost betray to the passing stranger that he was a bridegroom
returning to his bride. A husband of three months, for whom the
honeymoon was still shining, going home to his own elegant house to
meet a beautiful and affectionate wife--it was no marvel that his foot
rung on the pavement with such an electric tread.

As he turned the corner of Broadway to go up Bleecker, then one of the
fashionable streets, and the one upon which his mansion stood, the
lamp-light flashed full in his face, and he felt his hand heartily
grasped, at the same instant he extended it, and his own "My dear
Maurice! is it possible?" cut short by the enthusiastic greeting of his
friend.

"Yes, it's really me, myself. I'm just in on the packet from
Havre--making my way home. Mother does not expect me for a month yet,
and I'm going to give her a surprise. It seems to me you're looking
better than ever, Leger, and that's saying a good deal."

"That's my wife's fault."

"Your wife! You don't say you're married?"

"Didn't you receive my letter?"

"No! and mother certainly did not mention it in her last. Who is the
happy lady--and how long since?"

"You remember Annie St. John? Of course you do, for it was you who did
me the favor to first attract my attention toward her."

"Annie St. John!" The tone of the young man had changed suddenly--all
the warmth had gone out of it--it might be cold or surprised, or
doubting or chagrined--a look of pity or contempt swept plainly over
his countenance, but was presently banished.

The physician felt the momentary chill, but threw it off, without
reflection, for his mind acknowledged no reason for it.

"I wish you joy--much, much happiness," continued his friend,
presently, recovering his natural manner. "I came near to marrying
Annie once myself. I never told you of that, did I?" with a light
laugh. "But I must hurry on; I am delighting myself with the idea of
just stepping in and taking a seat at mother's nice tea-table. Of
course I shall come and see you--probably to-morrow."

The traveler hurried on toward the home from which he had been two
years absent, and the young physician went forward, but with an
uncomfortable feeling for which he could hardly account, except by the
levity, the actual rudeness of his friend in his manner of speaking of
his bride. Leger Carollyn was not the man to permit undue familiarity
toward himself, and much less toward the woman he honored as his wife.

And, although Maurice Gurnell was the dearest and most confidential of
his friends among his own sex, he felt the impulse to strike him when
he spoke those hateful words with such careless gayety:

"I came near to marrying Annie once myself."

A few moments later brought him in front of his own handsome mansion,
and his heart gave a bound which sent every unpleasant impression to
the winds as he saw the glow of light through the unclosed shutters,
and thought of the one who was awaiting him within. Admitting himself
with a night-key, he stole through the spacious drawing-room to the
boudoir, at the opposite end, where Annie was sure to be waiting, if,
indeed, she did not spring at the lightest sound of his approaching
step. She did not meet him to-day, but he saw her, sitting by the
little ormolu table, and paused to enjoy a stolen glimpse of her
loveliness.

Unconscious of observation, she had taken one of those flower-like
attitudes, half-drooping and inexpressibly graceful, peculiar to
herself. She held a miniature in her hand, upon which she was gazing,
the long lashes vailing her downcast eyes, her golden hair rippling
around her throat. She wore a blue dress of some rich material--blue
was her husband's favorite color, and it did set off the fairness of
her shoulders and the rose-hue of her cheeks most daintily.

"How girlish she looks," he whispered to his heart, "and how pure! I do
not see how I ever ventured to address her with the words of earthly
passion, though the angels know there is more of heaven than earth in
our love. My own Annie--my own wife!"

Blending with the odor of a japonica, leaning from a slender vase on
the ormolu table, almost kissing the cheek of its human sister, came a
refreshing breath of oriental perfume from the supper-room--the breath
of the rarest Flower of Delight, steeping in its silver urn. The light,
the luxury of his home diffused a sense of physical enjoyment through
the physician's nerves, while the sight of his wife, in her fresh and
innocent beauty, thrilled his spirit.

"How happy I am--how fortunate in every thing! Blessed Annie! In my
absence she solaces herself with my picture;" and, thinking to call up
the still frequent blush to her face by betraying her in this secret
occupation, he stole softly and peeped over her shoulder.

It was not his own face upon which his eyes fell, smiling back at his
bride from its framework of jewels--it was that of Maurice Gurnell. And
he never knew before that she had such a miniature in her possession;
yet now it flashed through his brain that he had seen that very locket
in Maurice's own keeping a short time before he left for Europe, and
that he, Maurice, had asked him if he thought the likeness good, for he
had gotten it painted for his betrothed, if he should ever have one.

Just as these thoughts were printing themselves in letters of fire upon
his blank mind, the breath which he caught with a gasp from his breast
fluttered his wife's light tresses, and she sprung to her feet, with
only a passing look of embarrassment. The next instant she laughed her
girlish laugh, and threw her arms about his neck, kissing him twice or
thrice without waiting to find if he kissed her in return. The locket
at which she had been gazing had disappeared within the folds of her
dress, slipped into her pocket, or, perhaps, into the bosom beating
against his own.

Dr. Carollyn endured her embraces, but he did not return them; he
stood like one in a dream--past, present and future swept over him
like the storm-sand over a desert, obliterating all traces of what has
been--changing the landscape so that he who had lived there a lifetime
can not recognize a familiar feature. It was Annie's arms that he felt
about him, and Annie's words of welcome sounding in his ears. But who
was Annie? Was she the wife in whose utter absence of guile of every
kind he trusted as he trusted in God and immortality? or was it Annie,
suddenly revealed to him in a character so different, that he felt
toward her as toward a disliked and suspected stranger? His wife--yet
his lip could not frame the word--his heart revolted at it.

"What is the matter, Leger? Are you ill?"

"No; only hungry."

She laughed; she was too accustomed to his affection to take offense
now at some little passing cloud of ill-temper.

"I believe you are, and weary, too. But you needn't be cross about it.
Come, tea has been waiting some time, I believe."

She led him by the hand into the cheerful supper-room, seating herself
at the head of the table, and pouring out his tea with that air of
dignity so pretty in youthful matrons.

"You said you were hungry, Leger, and yet you eat nothing."

"I meant that I was thirsty;" and he handed back the cup which he had
emptied at a draught.

As she prepared his tea he watched every graceful movement--he
looked intently into the face beaming with happiness, searching for
undiscovered lines about the temples and lips which might betray the
guilty secrets hidden in her heart. That face still looked to him as
pure as the unclouded heaven at noonday. If he could only believe it!
if he could only give himself up to his past confidence again! Oh,
God! if he _could_, he would resign at that moment every dollar of his
wealth, every throb of his ambition, and stand with her, outcast from
the world, on any remotest island of the sea.

"I was detained a few moments in the street," he observed, presently.
"I met an old friend, just returning from abroad."

"Indeed?"

Her voice was pleasant--she showed interest, as she always did when he
addressed her, but no agitation.

"Perhaps you can guess who it was?"

"I don't remember who of our friends are away, except Maurice Gurnell."

His keen look did not disconcert her; she seemed only a trifle
surprised at his own manner. He exerted himself to appear natural; to
force not only calmness but lightness--he did not speak nor look like a
man on whose soul happiness was poising herself, ready to take flight
forever.

"Perhaps you expected him?"

"Me? Not so soon--that is, not until--why, Leger, what do I know of
your friend Maurice's proceedings?"

Her husband's eyes, with a strange and deadly glitter in them, were
fixed upon her face. She blushed, she stammered, she admitted that she
was expecting him, and then attempted to withdraw from the admission.
Pushing his chair back from the table, he said:

"I'm going out, Annie, to spend the evening. Don't sit up for me," and
before she could spring to give him a good-by, or to help him with his
muffler and gloves, he had seized his hat and coat, and the hall-door
rung behind him.

Leger Carollyn bore a reputation for an unblemished moral character
which added to the luster of his professional fame, and gave grace to
his great mental accomplishments. But from boyhood he had been marked
by two great faults, one of which, his unbending pride, was patent
to every observer; but the other of which few understood, being one
which his pride would enable him to conceal, and which had but few
opportunities for making even himself aware of its existence. This
second defect, in his otherwise noble nature, was jealousy--a jealousy,
strong and terrible, of others, who shared the right of, or who gained
by favor, the love of those selected by himself for his devotion.

This peculiarity had been betrayed, when a child, in his family, and
had been the subject of the wisest and gentlest treatment from his
excellent mother. His only brother, two years younger than himself, had
been a thorn in his side--not because he did not himself love him, nor
because he was ungenerous toward him in any other respect--but because
he was jealous of every token of affection bestowed on another by the
parents he so passionately adored. The proud, reserved and thoughtful
child could not call forth those little endearments which the more
vivacious nature of his brother provoked, but he longed for them none
the less.

However, the gay, handsome boy died--died in his twelfth year--and left
Leger the sole idol of his parents. He mourned for his brother deeply,
he reproached himself secretly with every unkind thought he had ever
entertained--and yet, as the months rolled on, he was conscious that
he was happier now that his path was no longer crossed by a rival in
the love of his parents. So the fault lay in his nature, undeveloped
but not exterminated. It was not a mean jealousy--that is, it never
stooped to trouble itself about rivals in fame or position--he never
did a dishonorable act toward a rival schoolmate--nor, in later days,
threw obstacles in the way of, or judged selfishly, those striving
for success in his own profession. It was only that when he loved,
he wanted, in return for his own almost startling passion, the whole
interest and devotion of its object.

A man of such character would not be apt to flutter among the young
ladies of his circle of society, or to fix his choice lightly upon the
woman whom he should select to become his wife. So it chanced that at
twenty-five he was still unmarried. At this time Dr. Carollyn, his
father, passed away, leaving his son inheritor of the family-mansion,
of the wealth which a long and lucrative practice had amassed, and of
that practice itself, made valuable by the prestige of the parent's
name. The mother had died nearly six years before, so that Leger
Carollyn stood alone, with no relations either near or dear to him.

He had one friend, Maurice Gurnell, his classmate in college and
his equal in society, a member of an old New York family of French
extraction, and, as might be expected, the opposite in temperament
of the young physician, possessing all the grace and gayety, the
fluency of speech, and the love of the world which distinguishes his
progenitors. Leger admired and loved his fascinating and brilliant
companion, who esteemed and admired him in return; each being best
pleased with those traits in the other most contrasted with his own.

While yet weighed down with deep melancholy by the loss of his father,
Leger Carollyn was called, one night, to the bedside of a dying woman.
The house to which he was summoned stood in a respectable, though not
the most fashionable part of the city; the name he recognized as that
of a family once well known to his father and always highly regarded by
him, although much reduced from former affluence, and not mingling at
all with general society for the past few years.

Leger himself had never been to the house, and knew nothing in
particular of its inmates. His father had been their physician, and he
was now summoned to fill the place of the departed. Upon entering the
chamber of the sick lady, he saw at once that she was beyond the aid of
humanity; she seemed, herself, to be aware of it, for she said, as he
approached her bed:

"I am sensible that you can do nothing for me, Doctor. I would not have
troubled you, if my child had not insisted upon it. Annie?"

At the call of that dying voice, strangely thrilling and clear, a young
girl upon the opposite side of the bed raised her head from where it
had been hidden in the pillow, and looked at him with eyes which asked
the question her grieving lips refused to utter. She was the only
relative by the bed of death--an old nurse dozing in a chair, and the
servant who had admitted him, lingering by the door, as loth to go,
being her only attendants.

As he looked at the forlorn young creature and met her despairing eyes,
a feeling of pity, that was absolute anguish, seized upon the heart
of Dr. Carollyn. The circumstances reminded him so vividly of his own
recent bereavement, when he stood sole mourner by a parent's dying bed,
that his deepest sympathies were aroused. He passed around to her side,
and lifting her nerveless hand pressed it in his own, as he said, in
answer to her mute appeal:

"You must resign your mother, my dear child; but God will still be with
you."

The dying woman detected the tremble in his tone--it seemed as if some
glimpse of the future revealed itself to her in that moment; she said,
in the same clear voice:

"You are like your father, Dr. Carollyn. He was always one of my best
friends. I hope that you will be a friend to my child, for she has
not many. I am willing to trust her to you. She has neither father or
brother. She will not be dependent, except for friendship. She is so
young, so unused to doing for herself--ah, it is hard to leave you
alone, my Annie, but I leave you with God. Annie--Annie--be calm. I am."

The Doctor saw that the final moment would soon arrive, and felt as if
he ought not to leave that fragile young thing to bear the shock alone.
He remained, until, in the gray dawn, the spirit left earth, and the
desolate child sunk fainting into his arms.

When he had revived her, and restored her to the nurse, and to the
female servant, who seemed much attached to her, he asked if there were
no friends for whom he could send.

"Ah, botheration," said the weeping servant, "there's nobody nigher'n
cousins, and they're far away. But there's friends and neighbors
enough, as will come if they're wanted. I'll go for 'em meself."

That morning Dr. Carollyn was aroused from the slumber into which he
had dropped, after his night's unrest, by the entrance of his friend,
whom the servants had orders to admit at all seasons.

"In bed yet? Were you up last night? I'm glad I'm not a physician--I
like my ease too well."

"Yes, Maurice, I attended a dying lady last night. I've been dreaming
about it. It was so sad. She left a daughter not more than sixteen, and
without a relative in the world."

"Was it any one we knew?"

"It was Mrs. St. John--her husband was a scientific man, and wasted
much of their property in experiments. So I've heard my father say, who
liked him very much--their tastes were similar."

"St. John? and the daughter's name is Annie? I know the family. Paul
St. John has displayed many a chemical wonder to me, in days gone by,
when I was a boy and used to steal visits to his laboratory. Annie
was a wee thing, then, golden-headed and blue-eyed. I've met her
occasionally of late days--she's one of the sweetest flowers that e'er
the sun shone on--and dark blue is her e'e, and for bonnie Annie St.
John, I'd lay me down and dee. That is, I wouldn't--for I'm not given
to such things--but you would, Leger, after you've known her awhile.
Yes," he resumed after a pause, during which he had stood by the
window in a reverie unusually long for his butterfly nature, "Annie
St John is the girl for you, Leger. You are so exacting--you want the
whole heart and soul of some woman, and she's just the one. She is
situated like yourself--not a near relative to dispute your place in
her affections. She'd worship you, I know she would--it's in her! By
George, but she's beautiful; and she must be accomplished, for her
mother was one of the rarest women I ever knew. Ha! ha! Leger, wouldn't
it disappoint some of our brilliant belles, if you should go outside
the conservatory and gather such a dainty flower?"

"Hush, Maurice, don't talk in this manner, while that poor young thing
is breaking her heart beside her mother's corpse."

"It's not because I'm not sorry for her," said Maurice, more soberly.
"But I saw such a pretty romance developing."

"As usual, you're building your castles out of nothing but air,"
responded his friend, gravely, and began talking of other subjects; and
this one was never again resumed between them.

It was not many months after this that Maurice Gurnell resolved upon
spending a year or more in Paris--his mother had relatives there,
and the prospect was pleasing to one of his tastes. He tried hard to
persuade Dr. Carollyn to go with him, urging that the benefit and
pleasure he would derive from a study of his science in Paris would
amply repay him. But the doctor had, in his father's lifetime, spent a
year in that city, and did not now feel like deserting his large circle
of patients for so long a time.

There was, also, a dearer interest binding him; but of this, in the
reticence of his proud nature, he as yet said nothing.

He was following up his acquaintance with Annie St. John. Under the
sanction of that friendship which her dying mother had desired and
which his universal reputation upheld, he was studying the mind and
heart of the child-woman, and drawing her on, first to respect and
confide in him, then to feel his strong nature a help and a necessity,
then to fully and unreservedly love, to passionately adore him--even as
he already fully loved and trusted her.

It was not until he felt certain that her soul was absorbed in his,
that he spoke of his love to its object. The response he got was such
as to satisfy his exacting nature. He had indeed no rivals, not even
in the admiration of general society; for Annie, though fitted to
shine among the fairest, a woman of whom he knew he should be proud,
had lived a secluded life, owing to the tastes of her father, and the
necessity of economy which he had occasioned even before his death. Her
few friends were all among refined and cultivated people, who loved and
appreciated her, but these were few and of the quiet kind. The small
property left her kept her independently as a boarder with one of her
mother's friends, and furnished her with a handsome _trousseau_ when
she came to prepare for her marriage.

When Dr. Carollyn was known to be repairing and refurnishing the
family mansion, fitting it up richly with more than its pristine
splendor, report said, of course, that it was for a bride. But who the
bride was to be, not half-a-dozen persons knew, until she was presented
to his friends in the drawing-room of her new home as Mrs. Dr. Carollyn.

Her beauty and accomplishments could not be caviled at by the most
envious of disappointed belles--her family was unexceptionable, if not
wealthy and as for those lovely traits of character which made her what
she was, the husband cared not to have the world guess at half her
worth. It was enough for his pride that when in society she received
the most distinguished consideration; and enough for his love, that at
home she made him the happiest man in the world. The three months of
their wedded life had been all that we like to imagine for youth and
beauty, hightened by every favoring circumstance of worldly prosperity.




CHAPTER IV.

JEALOUSY.

 All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven--
       'Tis gone!
 Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!
 Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne
       To tyrannous hate!----
           ----Of one, whose hand,
 Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away
 Richer than all his tribe.--Shakspeare's Othello.


It would seem to have been the plainest duty of Dr. Carollyn to have
asked his wife, at once, how the miniature of his friend chanced to
be in her possession, and to have received from her such explanations
as she had to give, from which he might judge for himself. But when
men are beside themselves with anger, love, jealousy, or any other
mastering passion, they rush away from the simple, straight-forward
dictates of common sense, striking blindly at whatever impedes them.

When he left the house his heart was on fire. He walked distractedly up
one street and down another. No sooner would the vision of his wife,
all purity, rise before him in its matchless beauty, than the memory of
her hesitation, her blushes, and all the suspicious incidents of this
evening would rush before it. A jealousy, before which all previous
developments of it had been like the breath of morning before the
midnight whirlwind, swept through him, leaving every thing joyful in
his nature a prostrate ruin.

Yet he would be calm! He would not misjudge his friend, much less
would he misjudge his own wife! He would be calm--as cool and
dispassionate as if he were a juryman on trial of a stranger. He would
wait, watch, and not in any manner change his usual ways, so as to
excite the surprise of the interested parties. Oh no! he would not
distrust his Annie, until the certainty of her deception made further
trust in her impossible! And with feelings the gall of whose bitterness
proved that he had already prejudged her, he set to himself the task of
spy upon his wife.

It was midnight when he returned from his tramp through the chilly
streets. Annie was sitting up for him, in their chamber, a loose robe
thrown about her, and her bright hair, all unbound, rippling over
her shoulders. His melting heart was hardened again, as he observed
that her writing desk had just been pushed away from her, and that
the locket lay in a half-closed drawer, with a letter she had just
sealed. He had not known of her having any correspondents, aside from
occasional complimentary notes to and from friends in the city. The
face of the envelope lay up, and his lightning glance devoured the
address--Mademoiselle Victoire Gurnell.

"There is no Gurnell of that name," he cried to himself. "Maurice's
sisters are both married, and he has no cousins in this country.
Of course I should know of them. What a flimsy disguise! A secret
correspondence under an assumed name! Was ever man so betrayed?"

"I have been so lonely," said the young wife, closing the drawer with
one hand, as she laid the other on his own. "It's the first evening you
have left me so long; but I presume you and Maurice were talking over
old times--so I excuse you. Why, Leger, your hand is as cold as ice!"

"Your constancy will warm it," he said, with a laugh.

It was a hollow laugh, with a strange ring to it; but the pretty wife
was sleepy, though she would not have owned it possible, and she
did not observe its peculiarity. In ten minutes she was slumbering
peacefully. Her husband had laid himself by her side; as soon as her
regular breathing announced that she was sleeping, he slipped from
the bed. Twice and thrice he paced the room, approaching the little
writing-desk at every turn, and again shrinking away. Never in his life
had Dr. Carollyn done a dishonorable act; yet now he was hesitating
about a deed from which his honor recoiled. The jealousy which mastered
him soon put an end to the mental contest; he softly opened the
unlocked drawer, drew forth the letter, carefully broke the seal, took
out the folded sheet, and read:

"Dear Victoire--Be patient and hopeful. All is going well. You will
soon be the happiest of the happy. I will meet you to-morrow afternoon
at the place we appointed.

 "Annie."

He returned the note to the envelope and resealed it with such caution
as to leave no trace of what had occurred to it.

Mrs. Carollyn would certainly have noticed the haggard appearance
of her husband, carefully as he strove to appear well and happy, if
her own mind had not been unusually preoccupied. When they came to
the breakfast-table, she forgot to put sugar in his coffee, and made
several little mistakes about which he should have rallied her, if
they, also, in his mind had not been "trifles light as air," which
were, to him, "confirmation strong as proofs of Holy Writ."

"I've been thinking," she said, as she followed him into the study,
where he usually spent an hour after breakfast before going to his
office, "that it would be pleasant and proper to give a party in honor
of Maurice Gurnell. We expected to give one soon, in return for the
abundance showered upon us, and this appears to me a charming occasion.
What do you say, Leger?"

"I say so too, Annie. Give him a party, by all means!"

"Shall we have it a splendid affair, darling? Do you give me _carte
blanche_? Sit down here, and tell me something of how you would like it
to be, for I'd like to get out my invitations to-day--we ought to have
it as soon as possible."

"I've no time to spend on such matters. There are the sick and dying
waiting for my advice. Arrange your festival as you please. Only have
it as magnificent as it should be--don't fail to have it magnificent!
When the burning building crushes to its fall it always gives out the
brightest blaze of splendor." And he left his paper unread, hurrying
from the house.

"Leger is certainly a little _distrait_ this morning. He's worried to
death with his practice; he doesn't get rest enough. Oh dear, I wish
he were not so good a physician--or else that so many people wouldn't
get sick," and the young wife knitted her fair brow, perplexed to think
people would fall ill in this bright, beautiful world, and wondering
what she should first set on foot to bring affairs out right in the
briefest time.

"If Leger only knew my object in giving this party! But Maurice wishes
to surprise him as well as the rest of the world. I don't wonder they
accuse women of being unable to keep a secret; I'm sure it's hard for
me to keep mine away from my darling. Ah, if he only knew--I've _two_
secrets--but I shan't tell him the dearest one until all this confusion
of the party is over," and with a blush too lovely to have been wasted
in that solitude, she lost herself in a smiling reverie.

"I've been _so_ busy," she cried, as she flew to meet her husband,
as he came home to tea--he had not been in since morning--"and have
accomplished so much! I had the notes all written by four o'clock, with
a lady friend to help me. I sent Stephen out at noon with the first
half of them, and the others are delivered by this time I presume. I
was glad Mr. Gurnell did not come in until that part of the work was
done, as I wished to get them out to-day. He's just gone, five minutes
ago. It's set for Thursday evening--only two days; but I've ordered the
refreshments from Thompson's, and we've nothing to do but arrange the
rooms. Shall we have real flowers?"

"Real flowers? Oh, yes; nothing false about our entertainment--no
mockery of pleasure! I believe in having things what they seem to be;
don't you, Annie St. John? These snow-white lilies and japonicas--they
will be most appropriate."

"Yes, for a bride, they will be," was the innocent answer. "How like
old times it sounded to hear you call me by my maiden name!" guessing
little that he had called her that, because he had denied her the name
he had bestowed upon her.

As she leaned her head against his breast, he smoothed the hair
which glittered beneath his hand. If every separate shining strand
had thrilled him with electric fire, he could not have been more
profoundly moved. He loved this woman--this wife of his--loved her more
desperately than before he doubted her; he could not refrain his hand
from that caress if he had known that she was steeped in falsehood. The
next moment he tore it away, as if the touch of that silken head had
burned him.

"Then you did not go out this afternoon?" he asked, presently.

"No; I was intending to, but I had not time. I sent for Thompson to
come here for my orders."

"It would be better for your health if you went out every day."

He was glad when company came in, after tea. It prevented Annie from
noticing his mood--it freed him from her distracting endearments.
Maurice Gurnell was among the visitors. He staid until the others had
all gone, giving his friend a vivid and eloquent account of what had
befallen him, what he had seen, done and heard in the last year-and-a
half. Dr. Carollyn's manner was always so quiet, that the young man
noticed nothing unusual about him; but when he had nearly exhausted his
resources of foreign gossip, he rose, with a gay laugh.

"You look tired, Leger, and I don't wonder, the way I've rattled on. I
must beg Mrs. Carollyn's pardon for engrossing you so long. It seemed
so pleasant to be talking away at you again. I say talking _at_ him,
Mrs. Carollyn, for I always had to do all the active part of our
conversations."

How easy and graceful was his manner--how free from any appearance of
acting a part! Leger looked at the radiant face, the enchanting smile
of his handsome friend, so bright, so changeful, so fitted to win the
admiration of women, and cursed himself as a dark, severe, repelling
man, whom the fickle sex could find nothing in to really love.

As Maurice gave his hand to Mrs. Carollyn in saying good-night, Leger,
standing apart, and seeming to be arranging a book on the table, was
certain that he heard a whispered sentence, though he could not make
out its import.

We need not dwell minutely upon the two days of intolerable torture
which intervened between this and the evening of the party. Dr.
Carollyn had wrestled with himself, and had almost thrown the demon of
jealousy which was invisibly tearing him. The last few hours he had
enjoyed comparative peace. He could have gone down on his knees and
begged pardon of the wife he had been wronging in his thoughts, when
she came into the study to look for him, to get his opinion of her
dress, and to tell him it was time to take his place beside her in the
front saloon, to receive their guests.

Whether it was because her apparel was really so becoming, or whether
the intensity of his feelings hightened every effect, certain it is
that she had never appeared so beautiful to him--not even on the
wedding-day. She wore a blue velvet dress, with the pearls which had
been his bridal gift. A wreath of matchless japonicas circled the
golden coils of hair at the back of her head, while a few glimmering
ringlets shadowed her cheeks and throat, exquisite in contour and color.

He had reason to remember every minutest detail of dress, looks and
action, for the picture at that moment stamped upon his heart was
destined to glow there during long and desolate years, unobscured by
any more recent impressions. He sprung to his feet and kissed her.

"You admire me, then?" she said, with a happy smile.

"You are looking beautifully, Annie."

The bell rung, and they hurried through the glittering and perfumed
vista of rooms, to take their place at the upper end. For a couple
of hours a stream of gay people poured into the saloons. It was
destined to be a brilliant party; for, in addition to the luxury of
the apartments, the host and hostess were in just that mood which made
their guests most delightful.

"A wife improves Dr. Carollyn. I never saw him so brilliant," remarked
everybody.

When the tide of pleasure was at its hight; when all had arrived and
the music was loudest, the dancers whirling; when the heat and light
had called out the full perfume of the flowers not yet beginning to
wither, a shadow fell upon Dr. Carollyn. His wife had disappeared; so
had Maurice Gurnell, who had been flashing his wit and mirth amidst the
company collected in his honor. Striving to conquer his uneasiness,
Leger waited, while moment after moment rolled away, to him like hours.

"Perhaps they have gone to look at the supper-table;" and unable to
resist his maddening suspicions, but trying to believe that he was not
suspicious, he descended to the supper-room, where the last touches
were being given by skillful servants to the elegant table.

Again he passed through the thronged apartments, through the dancing
saloons, into the conservatory, the little study, out upon a little
balcony, chill with the winter twilight. They were in none of these.
He ascended to the dressing-rooms, passing on until he reached his
wife's chamber--that sacred, secluded room, into which he never entered
unbidden. He paused before the door with an icy heart and hand. He
heard voices--_his_ voice and _hers_ in earnest conversation; he heard
him say:

"And now, Annie, before we go, let me thank you again and again for all
you have done for me."

"Let us hasten," was the low reply, "before Leger misses us. Oh, dear!
he will be so surprised."

The chill left the listening husband, and a hot fever of rage took its
place. Flinging the door wide open, he stepped in.

"Not so surprised, madam, as you may think. I have guessed at your
secret days ago."

Annie was about to make some answer to this; but when she met his eyes,
she grew white and said nothing.

"As for you, Maurice Gurnell, I will not kill so mean a man as you. I
will not even strike so base a thing. Only take _her_ with you, and get
out of my presence forever;" and with a slight, contemptuous gesture
toward his wife, he turned upon his heel.

"Stay!" cried Maurice; "you are mad, Leger. Let us explain;" but he
continued down the hall, till Annie, with a faint cry, sprung to his
side, grasping his arm.

"Leger Carollyn!"

He flung off her hand, and she shrunk back into her chamber; but before
he had reached the turn in the hall which led to the dressing-rooms,
a slight figure, robed in white, with a long vail sweeping about
the floating drapery, sprung before him, seized both his hands, and
commenced talking rapidly in French--so rapidly, that he, not of late
days very familiar with the sounds, hardly understood her, but he was
compelled to hear enough to rivet his attention.

"Ah! you do not understand," she cried, half-laughing, half in tears.
"I am Victoire. Maurice is not a bad man--no, no, you must not call him
so. He is my husband--ah me, this very day. Your sweet, angel wife, she
help us--it was her own good pastor marry us this day. It was your wife
who kept it secret--because, you see, I was in the convent--and I run
away. I run away and came across the sea to wait for Maurice--that is
it, because we love each other so. He was my cousin. Come; your sweet,
pretty wife said we should have a wedding-party, and surprise them all.
Come; we must go down. Ah me! I tremble so, to think of it!"

The pretty creature, all childish animation, pushed him back with
eager gesture, to the chamber he had left in such a tumult. An infant
could have led him, the reaction had left him so unresisting. Maurice
met him at the threshold, saying, gravely:

"I forgive your too hasty words, Leger. It was foolish of me to try to
keep my little plan a secret from you; but I thought the surprise would
be pleasant. In five moments I can tell you all that is now necessary
with regard to Victoire. She is my cousin once removed. Her mother's
family live in Paris. When I went to see them, Victoire was at school
in a convent. Her mother was extremely religious, and, having married
two daughters comfortably, had resolved that this one should enter a
nunnery. She gave me permission to call upon my cousin at the convent.
I did so. Notwithstanding the icy presence of the lady-superior, we
contrived to fall in love with each other. Look at her, Leger, and you
will not wonder! I went back and proposed to my aunt for her daughter's
hand. She rejected the idea. I could not soften her. Of course, the
more I was opposed, the more passionate became my resolution. I
contrived to correspond with Victoire; I laid a plan for her to escape
from the convent, and take passage in the vessel which was to sail the
month before I left. This I did to avert suspicion and pursuit. Of
course if they saw me still in Paris, they would know she had not fled
with me; and if they looked for her in connection with me at all, they
would confine their search to the city. She accomplished her flight
in safety; the captain of the vessel, a friend of mine, took her in
charge. Not wishing to send her to my own family (knowing they would
oppose the match bitterly, and probably return her to her mother), I
bethought me of Annie St. John, the woman of all my acquaintance I most
respected and admired, and I gave Victoire letters to her in which
I begged her to take charge of my poor little blossom and keep our
secret in her own breast until I arrived, and our marriage was safely
consummated. She found the lady married, but she had heard me speak of
you too often not to feel the same confidence in her as before. She
came to your house with her letters, and her poor little lonely heart
frightened and trembling; but she was not willing Mrs. Carollyn should
even tell you her story, which was a little foolish. Mrs. Carollyn
obtained board for her with the same lady in whose family she herself
resided before her marriage, keeping watch and ward over her until I
arrived to relieve her of the charge. She thought it a pretty plan
to give us a wedding-party. With the sanction of her presence and
approval, your pastor married us privately this afternoon. And now we
are ready to face the whole curious, condemnatory, applaudatory and
astonished world, are we not, little girl?" And with a look of tender
fondness Maurice turned to the young creature, shy but happy, clinging
to his arm. "Come, Dr. and Mrs. Carollyn, give us the support of your
countenance through this trying ordeal."

Leger offered his arm to his wife. She did not take it, but walked by
his side, with a strange luster in her pale face--a fixed, resolute
expression, that did not change through the evening. With admirable
dignity she introduced the bride and bridegroom to the surprised
assemblage, his own relatives included.

The supper was a marvel of costly luxury. It was late when the dancers
tired, the music faltered, and the house was gradually left to
solitude. Mr. and Mrs. Gurnell had been previously invited to spend a
week with their hostess, and their chamber awaited them. Mrs. Carollyn
left them at its door with a pleasant good-night.

When the Doctor knocked at his wife's door, his heart drenched in tears
of humble regret, she did not respond to the summons, and he retired to
await the subsiding of her just displeasure.

But when she was summoned to the late breakfast, her room was found
empty. Nothing was disturbed. The blue velvet dress lay on the bed.
A traveling-dress and bonnet was gone from the wardrobe. The casket
of pearls was on the bureau. Of all her wealth she had taken nothing
but a sum of money--amounting to a few hundred dollars, which had
come in from her property--and her wedding-ring. Since she was a
wife, and might possibly some time become a mother, she had kept her
wedding-ring--and, yes, her marriage-certificate. One of the servants
said he had heard the door open and close, very early in the morning,
but he was very sleepy, from having been up so late, and had paid no
attention to it.

And from that time, for weary, heart-withering years, Dr. Carollyn
obtained no clue to the fate of his wife.




CHAPTER V.

THE HUNTER AND THE MAIDEN.

  And still thy mane streams backward
    At every thrilling bound,
  And still thy measured hoof-stroke
    Beats with its morning sound!--Bayard Taylor.

  Now he shivers, head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off,
          And his face grows fierce and thin!
  And a look of human woe from his staring eyes did go.

  Mrs. Browning.


For once Nat Wolfe was disappointed in his best friend--his long-tried,
much-lamented steed, Kit Carson. All the long afternoon he pursued the
northerly course which the bison had taken, and which, he knew, led
to more fragrant streams and better pasturage. The same moon toward
which Elizabeth, riding merrily in the ox-drawn wagon, was looking with
such longing eyes, found him still striding on, throwing keen glances
in every direction, but without having met a living thing of any kind
in his six hours' journey. He was certain that he was on the track of
the herd; and, more than that, frequently, before it grew too dark for
such observations, he detected the print of horse-shoes here and there
along the way. As long as the moon shone he continued to walk; but when
it set, there was nothing to do but to eat his dry biscuit, take a
draught from his canteen and lie down to sleep with a tuft of grass for
a pillow. This he did, still feeling confident that when he awoke it
would be to find Kit grazing quietly by his side.

The first rays of the morning roused him. He had slumbered heavily, for
he was fatigued; and as he tried to shake off the chill and stiffness
of his night's exposure by running swiftly, he remarked to himself:

"Well, I may as well run in the right direction, and that is, toward
the point I started from. Poor Kit's gone forever, I fear. I must get
back to the trail, in order to follow the route to Denver. I'll have to
foot it all the way, unless I overtake some train that'll be willing
to sell me some kind of an animal. I wouldn't have taken a thousand
dollars for Kit Carson! Confound me if I think the girl was worth it!"

Yet, at the recollection of the maiden in whose behalf he had
sacrificed his horse, a sudden warmth thrilled through his veins, very
beneficial in dispelling the effects of the night air; he slackened his
speed insensibly, forgetting his breakfast for some time in visions of
a young, wistful face, with eyes so lustrous and yet melancholy that
they made his heart yearn to fill them with smiles instead of tears to
which they seemed more accustomed.

"It's a burning shame in that shiftless farmer to be dragging that kind
of a child out to Pike's Peak--an infernal hole for men, at the best.
She don't feel at home, poor thing, that's evident! Her place is with
the ladies of the land--instead of being set down in a shanty among
a crowd of rough, swearing miners. She needs a protector, that child
does--blast me if she don't." Here a thought rushed through his mind
which deepened the flush of his sun-burned cheek. Presently he shook
his head, continuing, "No! no! it's too late for that with Nat Wolfe. A
man that's been fooled by a woman as I was, would be a double fool to
trust one of the kind again."

Coming to a pool of water in a deep gully, Nat refreshed himself with
the remains of his dried meat and biscuit, filled his canteen with
water, and pushed on. It was noon when he reached Pike's Peak trail--at
almost the spot where he left it. There were no travelers in sight.

"I must overtake that train again. It's going my way, and--and--I
shan't just feel easy without seeing that girl again. I'm a good match
for an ox-team; but when it has at least twenty miles the start, that
makes it harder. I'll be likely to be hungry before I reach the next
station, if I don't come across a stray buffalo or antelope, and we're
about out of their range now. However, it's too early in the day to
borrow trouble. I've been fifty hours without food, more than once."

With long, steady, gliding steps, which took him over the ground
with surprising rapidity, yet which had not the appearance of haste
or effort, he continued his march, reaching the place at which the
emigrants had stayed the previous night, before sundown. Here he was
fortunate enough to find, among other relics of their encampment, some
of the remains of their breakfasts. He did not pause to scrupulously
examine the nicety of these fragments; for he had eaten nothing since
early morning, and was very glad of these providential crumbs. Having
somewhat rested and refreshed himself, he had about concluded to push
on, until nine or ten in the evening, so as to come up with the train
by evening of the next day. It was now after sunset. As he arose to
resume his journey, he perceived, afar, against the northern hemisphere
of the horizon, a party of horsemen sweeping on; he knew them, even at
that distance, by their attitudes and manner of riding, as a band of
Indians.

"They'd like right well to know I was here, alone and on foot,"
soliloquized Nat, "though I doubt then if they'd care to approach me,
when I was wide-awake and looking out for them. Let 'em come! the
whole snaky set! I suppose it would be just as prudent not to show
myself until they are out of sight; though if they come where I am, I'm
agreeable! I'd like to dislodge a red-skin from one of those horses,
and take his place. Perhaps they'll camp here for the night. Ha! here
they come; I'd better be looking out for a covert."

He crept along the ground and dropped down the embankment into the
river-bed. Here he could conceal himself from observation, unless
the party stopped for the night, or came for water. In case he was
discovered before the twilight enabled him to escape, he had only to
depend upon his weapons, and the dauntless courage which had made him
so famous.

It was true that most of these vagrant bands of red-skins were not at
war with the whites; but their natural cruelty and covetousness would
lead them to murder any solitary traveler they might chance upon; and
toward Nat Wolfe they all felt the fury of revenge for the frequent
losses they had sustained from him.

As the tramp of the approaching horses drew nearer, he raised his
head cautiously and reconnoitered. "They're a well-mounted set of
devils--plenty of 'em, too, I'll swear!" he muttered; and seeing a bush
hanging over the bank a little further down, which would afford him a
better chance to make observations, he crawled on his hands and knees
along the yellow clay until he came to the spot over which it grew.
This new position was a safer one in this respect--it was around a
bend of the stream; so that if the Indians came to dip water from the
half-dried pool above him, they would not observe him where he lay,
sheltered by the bend; the ground above, also, shelved over, so that he
stood a good chance of escaping their keen eyes. Looking well to his
trusty rifle, and mechanically feeling the knife and revolvers in his
belt, he pressed as closely as possible under the bank and listened
until the party drew rein, as he had anticipated they would, and
dismounting made preparations for encamping for the night. Nat's trail
was so mixed up with that of the company who had occupied the ground
the previous day that the new-comers perceived nothing to arouse their
suspicions.

It was extremely irksome to Golden Arrow to lie crouched under the bank
all the time the new-comers were kindling their fires, broiling their
venison and feeding their horses such forage as they had; he had rather
have darted upon them like the weapon after which they had named him;
but, brave as he was, he knew that one white man was a poor match for
thirty Indians, and he restrained his hatred and impatience as best
he could; varying the tedium with the rather dangerous amusement of
raising himself to watch them behind the shelter of the bush. The two
hours which they spent, before they finally stretched themselves in a
ring with their feet to the ashes of the fire they had made, seemed to
him endless. They had secured their horses by tying a knot in the end
of the ropes about their necks, and burying these knots in the earth
of the prairie, in lieu of trees to tie them to. Twilight had deepened
into the wan moonlight of a chilly night before all was so quiet as to
warrant Nat's attempt to escape from his present unfriendly proximity.
Quietly creeping along the river-bed, until out of hearing distance
of any wakeful ear, he finally stood up, climbed the bank, and struck
across the desert--as the stream took him away from instead of toward
the track he intended to find and follow.

Nothing interfered with his intentions, and he was soon traveling
briskly along the trail, which the descending moon enabled him to
follow. For an hour he made good progress; but as the moon went down
the wind arose, and soon that terrible tempest which was working such
destruction in the camp of the emigrants came upon him also, defying
his utmost efforts to hold his own against it. Not a rock to shelter
him, not a shrub to cling to, and wrapped in impenetrable darkness, all
he could do was to fling himself flat upon the ground, shut his eyes,
and let the winds trample him at their pleasure. During all the first
fury of the tornado he lay thus; when it had somewhat abated he arose
and struggled on against it. His only guide was the fact that the wind
had come from the direction in which he wished to go; so he now set
his face against it, feeling his way through the starless night. But
the wind has the reputation of being fickle, and it is not surprising,
therefore, that when the wished-for morning began to break, Nat Wolfe
found himself, instead of several miles on the way toward friends, back
in the camp of the enemy.

The Indians were already stirring, on the alert to discover what losses
they had sustained by the storm. Nat, fearing discovery on the open
plain, again took to his hands and knees, creeping along to seek for
some shelter in the bed of the stream until the party should have
mounted and ridden off. Scarcely had he gained a secure position, with
a friendly shrub again giving him an opportunity to reconnoiter, when
he perceived another band of mounted men swiftly approaching from the
west, along the Denver trail. That these, too, were red-skins, and
a part of the former party, he at once decided; but great was his
surprise to perceive that one of the savages rode his own lost steed,
Kit Carson.

His astonishment was swallowed up in a still greater emotion the next
instant; trained as he was to the suppression of all outward signs of
excitement, he could scarcely repress a cry, at perceiving, bound to
a pony, which was led by the rider of his own horse, a white captive
whom he recognized as the very young girl whom he had rescued from the
bisons. The east was now golden with the coming sunrise, and as the
party drew nearer he plainly observed the face of the captive--that
young, beautiful face--now so pale with terror and fatigue, as to
excite his deepest pity. The storm had blown the polished braids of
her hair into streaming tresses which rippled about her form in dark
waves. She was quiet, for her hands were tied, and effort was hopeless;
but her features had an expression of dread and anguish impossible to
depict. Nat remembered her pitiful avowal to him of her extreme horror
of Indians, and his stern heart shook with sympathy, as he noted the
still despair--aversion of her look. The one who led her pony Nat
recognized too--a dirty, repulsive savage upon whose face he had once
inflicted a wound, in a battle between the settlers and red-skins
years ago, and who had since concealed the marks of his disgrace
with a bandage. This fellow evidently knew that he was riding Golden
Arrow's horse; he was in high spirits, as he galloped along, forcing
the smaller pony which he led, into doing its best to keep up with him.
As the party swept by within two rods of where he crouched, Nat's eyes
almost met those of Elizabeth, who turned an eager piercing gaze at the
bush, as if her mind or senses had detected the presence of a friend.
The two companies now met; the new arrivals would not dismount, making
such gestures toward the girl, and the path they had come over, that
Nat easily understood they were afraid of pursuit, and were resolved
to press on to some more distant ground, before pausing for rest. The
others, acquiescing in this, mounted their horses, only pausing to
water them at the stream. During this brief interval of grace Nat Wolfe
had to make up his mind whether or not there was any thing to be done
for the salvation of that poor child whose beauty and distress alike
appealed to all the bravery, all the daring and chivalry of his nature.

It was one man, on foot, against forty mounted devils, who, however
cowardly some of them might be under equal chances, would be fired
with exultant ferocity by the advantages of the occasion. And, however
willing he might be to throw away his own life in the effort to
preserve the maiden, he felt that any failure on his part would only
hasten her fate. All these thoughts rushed through his brain in the
brief time he was given for reflection; but his pulse remained as
steady, his eyes as cool and quick as ever in his life; indeed, all his
faculties, while they intensified in power, gathered to his aid like
soldiers rushing to the call of their leader.

If he could have given Elizabeth warning of his proximity, so that
she would have been prepared to take advantage of any momentary
opportunity, it would have been increasing the chances of success, but
she was too lost in dread and too hopeless of succor, to be on the
look-out for friends in this unlikely spot. She did frequently turn
her head and gaze off over the track they had passed, as if with some
hope of the emigrants sending aid, and after such a fruitless search
over the desert road, would drop her head despairingly. Once, while all
the Indians were busy among themselves, and she seemed to be looking
toward the bush behind which he knelt, he ventured to raise his hand
an instant. Whether she perceived the signal he could not decide; she
certainly started, lifting her head with so eager a motion that her
savage captor turned toward her sharply, when she immediately resumed
her drooping attitude.

The one narrow chance which Nat saw, was to kill the rider and secure
his horse, who, he knew, would bound to him at the first call. If he
could do this before they wreaked a sudden revenge upon the girl, he
hoped to seize her and to fight his way free of the band. It would be
as good as a miracle if they should indeed get away without injury from
the shower of shot which would be poured upon them, as the Indians,
more than half of them, had guns.

"Kit knows I'm somewhere about," muttered the hunter, as his horse
began to grow restive--so restive that the red robber could hardly
retain his seat in the saddle. "I wouldn't give that horse for all the
human friends you could give standing-room on this prairie."

That instant the animal made a plunge which compelled his rider to
loosen his hold upon the pony's rein or lose his own equilibrium--he
dropped his hold upon the captive, and in three seconds Nat had pulled
trigger upon him. Simultaneously with the crack of his rifle the shriek
of the dying savage rung upon the air as he leaped from the saddle,
and fell headlong to the earth. Before the astonished enemy could
comprehend what had happened, with a sharp, low cry to his steed,
Golden Arrow sprung full into sight, appearing to their superstitious
gaze to have dropped from the sky. Kit needed no second signal. With
a joyous whining he bounded to meet his master, who was upon his back
before one of the savages had presence of mind to attempt retaliation.
In half a moment more he had snatched the girl from the rope which
bound her to the pony, flung her across his horse's neck, to whom he
gave an encouraging whistle, and turned to fly, with the whole pack,
now yelling with hate and fury, upon his track. Into the bed of the
stream Nat guided his horse, whose immense leaps, doubly burdened as he
was, showed his almost human sagacity in the consciousness of deadly
peril. More than twenty bullets whistled above and around them. Nat
felt one cut the rim of his cap, while another grazed his leg as it
plowed through his leather breeches. Whether any struck the frail form
hanging over his saddle-bow, he had no time to see--only there was
neither motion or cry. A few rods more placed them under the protection
of a rise in the bank, from whence he could act upon the defensive;
here, sheltered from their aim, he wheeled in the saddle and shot down
his nearest pursuer. Three or four more came recklessly on, but as many
shots from his revolver sent them dead to the earth, or wounded and
yelling back again. Finally the whole troop paused and backed out of
rifle-range, where they seemed to be holding a consultation. With all
possible speed Nat reloaded his rifle--he had yet two charges in his
revolver--then, patting his horse, gave him rein, and with a shout of
triumph, flew off over the plain in the direction of the trail to the
West. He feared nothing now, for he had a little the start, and there
was no animal in the group behind that could distance Kit Carson. Of
this the red-skins were as well aware as he; looking back, he perceived
they were not attempting pursuit, but were sullenly gathering about
their killed and wounded companions.

It was well for the escaped whites that this was the result. For a
while, Kit galloped on with fierce energy; but suddenly, and while they
were yet almost within sight of the enemy, he began to fail and stagger.

"What is it, Kit? What is it, my beauty?" questioned his owner,
stroking his neck, and speaking as softly as to a lady. "He is
hurt--bleeding--poor Kit!" he cried, as, stooping, he perceived for the
first time the life-blood flowing from a wound in the chest received
by the noble animal. "We must dismount and see what we can do for him."

The slackened speed and the voice of her preserver aroused Elizabeth;
she lifted herself from the neck to which she was clinging, and
comprehending what had happened, slid to the ground. Nat, with evident
distress, dismounted and examined the wound.

"Poor Kit, we can do nothing for you," he cried.

"Take this--perhaps you can stanch the blood," said his companion,
taking off her apron.

He tried to bind up the wound, but his efforts were of no avail--he had
only time to relieve him of the saddle before the faithful steed sunk
shivering upon his knees and rolled over upon his side.

"We have not even a drop of water for him," said Nat, in despair.

With a most pitiful, touching look of affection, the dying eyes of
the horse were fixed upon those of his master, who knelt beside him,
caressing and talking fondly to him. In a few moments all was over--Kit
Carson was dead.

The grief of his master was such as Elizabeth had not expected in so
hardy and self-possessed a character. With his face bowed upon the
proudly-arched neck now stiffening in death, Nat Wolfe remained silent,
lost in sorrow, not even looking back to be sure of his own safety from
lurking enemies. She saw how manfully he strove to restrain himself,
but how, in despite of his efforts, the breath came harder and more
labored until great sobs shook the breast of the brave stranger who had
twice periled life in her defense, and whose loss and trouble now had
been occasioned by his rescue of herself.

A little while Nat's face was hidden, ashamed of the tears which
flowed as a tribute to the memory of a friend the noblest and truest,
whose life had been given a sacrifice to crown years of faithful and
intelligent servitude--a little while, and then his face was lifted up
by a pair of small, soft hands; eyes glistening with tears of sympathy
met his, and a kiss fell upon his forehead. As she would have comforted
her uncle had she seen him in distress, the innocent child, moved by
pity, remorse and gratitude, strove to comfort the person she had
brought into this trouble--only the shyness, the sweet modesty which
she herself scarcely understood, made her actions the more lovely.
The timid touch and kiss, the sight of the fair face full of womanly
solicitude, thrilled the hunter's heart with a fire which his companion
little dreamed of kindling. It was a propitious moment for a new
feeling to steal in and usurp the place of the desolate, friendless
sense of loss which afflicted him. The little brown hand crept into his.

"It is all my fault. If it had not been for me, he would not have been
killed," said Elizabeth, sadly. "I am so sorry--so sorry--and yet--ah,
sir, if you had not come what would have been my--" she could not
finish the sentence--a shudder shook every fiber of her frame.

"He could not have died in a better cause. I would have sacrificed
Kit twice over to save you, so you must not blame yourself," he said,
becoming in his turn the comforter. "We are hardly safe yet," he added,
looking uneasily to the east. "If those prowling scoundrels should
discover our loss, they would be after us with a vengeance. I will look
well to my arms, and then we will take up our march without delay. Poor
child! how do you think you can stand thirst, hunger and fatigue? I
will try to shoot some stray game before night; but it's scarce here,
I can tell you, and we may not find a drop of water till we get to the
next station."

"I do not fear any thing in the world but those hateful Indians," was
the reply. "I had rather starve to death in the desert, than to ever
see one again. Oh, sir, let us get as far from them as we can."

He laughed at the beautiful, frightened eyes, lifted so confidingly and
appealingly to his own.

"I don't wonder they make you nervous, little girl. Wait until I cut a
lock of hair from Kit Carson's mane, and we will speed along. Poor Kit,
good-by!"

"Cut a lock for me, too," whispered Elizabeth.

Tears were in the eyes of both as they took their last look at their
murdered friend; but the presence of still imminent danger, and the
necessity of losing no time in seeking their party before their
strength should be exhausted, admonished them to linger no longer.
Under a burning sky, across the desolate, hot, unsheltered desert,
without food or water to refresh them, they took up their march.




CHAPTER VI.

FOR LIFE OR DEATH.

 Before his swimming sight
   Does not a figure bound,
 And a soft voice, with wild delight,
   Proclaim the lost is found?
         No, hunter no!--Alfred Street.

 They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
 Between the sun and moon upon the plain.--Lotus-Eaters.


It was noon of the second day since Buckskin Joe and the sallow
stranger of the other train left their respective companies in search
of the missing girl.

"It's no use, Mister; we may as well put back in time to save our own
skins. We'll never set eyes on that gal ag'in. Vittals is scarce and
water scarcer; we may as well put back to the train. If we start now
we can overhaul 'em before morning--the way back is more direct than
the one we've took, and the moon'll be up so we can travel a'most all
night."

They had been trotting along at a languid pace, their horses panting
with heat and thirst, for some time before Joe made this remark. He
made it now in a tone which told how reluctant he was to come to such a
conclusion.

The stranger, who had not spoken for two hours, reined up his animal
with a jerk; his eyes flashed fire as they met those of the guide.

"So you abandon her to her fate, do you?"

"Wal, I reckon there's no use of you curlin' up your nose at me if I
do," responded Joe, angered by the fierce sneer of his companion's
face. "What man kin do to save that child I'm willin' to do, though
she's no kith or kin of mine. But there's no use keepin' on this
way--'twon't save her and 'twon't do no good. We've _got_ to give up
for the present--she's dead or out of our reach 'fore this. But this
I say--if them pesky red-skins has had any thing to do with carrying
her off, we'll find it out sooner or later. I'll track her, dead or
alive, if it takes ten years--and I'll have my revenge on 'em--for I
took a fancy to that little critter." He drew his sleeve across his
eyes, and then, ashamed of the weakness, looked as if about to whip his
companion, as a more natural way of giving vent to his emotions.

"I will not, I _can not_ give her up!" said Mr. Carollyn. "I will
perish here in the effort to find her. Friend, do not leave me yet. I
will cheerfully give you a thousand dollars if we are successful."

"I'd do more for Miss 'Lizabeth than I would for a thousand dollars,
stranger. Buckskin Joe'd never give up while thar' was as much hope
left as thar' is white on a black cat. But gold won't water our horses
nor bring game to our feet in this cussed desert. We're on the trail
now, and our only chance for ourselves is to keep it, and catch up with
our company. If it would do _her_ any good, the Lord knows I'd starve
to death in welcome."

A repressed groan was the only reply of the other, whose eyes roved
restlessly over the broad and burning expanse. There was a look of
wildness and misery in his face which caused Joe to mutter to himself:

"The sun on his head is onsettlin' his brain."

The next moment the flash of something against the light dazzled him;
looking to see what it was, he perceived the stranger, as if oblivious
of his presence, holding a ring in his hand and utterly absorbed in
gazing upon it. He knew it in an instant--it was Elizabeth Wright's!
Indignation and astonishment struggled in the honest mind of the
guide. His acquaintance with Mr. Carollyn, developed as it had been by
the intimacy of the last two days, had increased his respect for the
courage, endurance, the great learning and the real manliness of his
companion, whom he both respected and admired.

The matter of the ring had been almost driven from his mind by greater
anxieties. Now he recalled the young girl's suspicions, and his promise
that he would restore the lost jewel to her if he should discover it,
even upon the person of the haughty gentleman. Resolved to risk the
consequences of giving offense, he at once inquired:

"Where did you get that, Mr. Carollyn?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because it belongs to the gal we're after. She felt mighty bad at
losing it. I promised to help her find it. I s'pose it lost off her
finger and you picked it up?" The half-suspicious, half-inquiring
tone in which this last sentence was put brought a faint smile to the
haggard countenance of his hearer.

"It shall be returned to her--be sure of that, friend--that is, if
she be not lost forever! My God, I can not give up! After so many
years--and now--is my punishment never to cease? Man! man!" he cried,
catching and wringing Joe's hand, all the pride vanished from his
manner, "she is mine, my child! my only child! I have found her only to
lose her. Oh, say, is there not something yet to be tried? I can not go
back!"

"Wal, that beats all," muttered Joe, looking curiously to see some
token of insanity in his companion's eyes.

"I'm telling you the plain, simple truth; that girl is my own daughter;
this ring is mine as well as hers--her mother's wedding-ring. Say that
you will not give up, friend," he persisted.

"I s'pose there's water about five or ten miles easterly, and we mought
possibly find some kind of game near it, to make a supper on. If it'll
relieve your mind any, stranger, we'll camp thar' to-night, and let the
train go on without us. It's risky, and it won't do no good--but it
shan't be said that Buckskin Joe ever give up, while any body else held
out--so thar'!"

Their hands met in a strong grip which sealed the promise; again
their horses were started on, and for the next hour they rode along
the sultry plain silently, with sharp, attentive glances, discovering
nothing to stimulate their sinking hopes.

"What's that! what in thunder?" suddenly spoke Joe, stopping his horse,
and pointing to a dark object lying in a little heap nearly a mile away
on the yellow plain.

"It looks like an antelope," said Mr. Carollyn, looking in the
direction indicated.

"It looks like a human critter," said Joe, and without further parley,
the two struck off at full speed for the little dark spot which had
attracted their curiosity. "It looks like two on 'em!" was his next
remark.

"A man and a woman!" he added presently.

"White!" was his next observation.

"Nat Wolfe, I'll be dogged!"--a moment later.

"And 'Lizabeth Wright," he shouted, exultantly, bounding forward.

In ten seconds more he sprung from his horse, ran up to the hunter--who
had risen to his feet and waved one arm while with the other he
supported the slender form of a female--and shook his fist in his face.

"Thunder and blazes! Nat Wolfe, if you hain't went and gone and been
the first in the field ag'in! You're a mean, impertinent, sneaking
fellow--what business, I say, have you with this gal? Didn't you know
_I_ was after her? Couldn't you let her be? You might a' known I'd
been all right, in the course of time. This is the second time you've
stepped in between me and her--and, by hokey, ef you do it ag'in, I'll
consider it a personal matter."

"You must be a little faster on your pegs, then, my boy," said Nat, a
little faintly, but trying to laugh. "You've come in very good time
now, though, and if you've got something for the girl to eat and drink
I'll give you all the credit of saving her."

In the meantime, Dr. Carollyn, with the eye of a physician, had
detected at one glance the state of the case; he, too, sprung from his
horse, and snatching the maiden from Nat's arm, poured between her lips
a spoonful of brandy from a flask in his belt. The liquid ran through
her veins like pleasant fire; she opened her eyes, smiled, and made
an effort to sit up unassisted. Hope and joy equally with the more
material stimulus revived her from the state of almost insensibility in
which she had been lying for some time.

"She's about beat out," muttered Joe, "that's sartain. If I hadn't a'
come just as I did, she'd been a goner. Here, Miss 'Lizabeth, here's a
biscuit--eat it, every crumb of it, for you're starved, I know."

She caught at the food eagerly but the firm hand of the stranger
withdrew it.

"Cautiously, at first," he said, breaking off little bits, and feeding
her as he would a baby.

"I'll be danged if anybody'll let me do any thing fer that gal,"
scolded Joe. "Everybody meddles."

"Do something for me, then," said Nat. "I shouldn't object to a bit of
bread and meat, if you've got it to spare."

Joe, who was only discontented when he could not be useful to
somebody, turned his wallet inside out in his generous search for
provisions.

"Be careful," again said the calm voice of the Doctor, "do not waste
any thing. We have got to make our way to the train on that limited
supply. Joe, you have water in your canteen? Mix a little of this
brandy with it and give him."

The hunter ate and drank sparingly, for he was well aware of the
necessity of prudence; it was a feast to him to see the light and color
coming back into the maiden's face. Although he had fasted much longer
than she, he was inured to just such hardships, and was much the least
exhausted of the two. Their sufferings had been chiefly from thirst,
increased by the heat and the necessity for constant exertion.

They had been disappointed in finding the stream which Nat had been
certain was within marching distance on their route, the previous day.
They had walked all day, and far into the night, in hopes of reaching
it, and finding perhaps an antelope or even a stray prairie-dog upon
which they might sup.

Of course the hunter was obliged to shorten his steps to those of his
little friend; and she, tasking her energies to the utmost, would not
say that she must pause for rest, until she finally sunk down in the
darkness, unable to proceed further.

That was a strange night in the experience of both. The young girl,
clinging to him like a child to its mother, was cherished as sacredly.
She complained neither of hunger or thirst, nor of her fear of prowling
savages and animals, but as the wild wind of midnight grew more chilly,
she shrunk closer to him; he took her to his breast, wrapped about her
his own leather jacket, and she slept away all memory of danger and
fatigue. We can not protect and shelter any helpless thing without
softening toward it, even if it be troublesome and stupid--how, then,
could Nat Wolfe care for this most beautiful and innocent maiden, as
circumstances obliged him to do, without feeling the growing of a
golden chord binding their interests together in bands never more to be
broken? The soft cheek upon his shoulder, the softer bosom close to his
own, returned the sacrifice of his jacket, by kindling a warmth in his
heart which bid defiance to the cold wind.

As soon as the deep darkness preceding the dawn began to lighten, he
aroused his slumbering companion.

"You can walk better now than in the heat of the day," he said; "poor
child, I wish I had food to offer you."

"I feel much rested now, sir; and perhaps we shall find something to
kill before many miles."

She spoke cheerfully, and, for a while, felt so; but as the sun came
slowly up, and rose higher and higher in the heavens--as the sand
grew hot under her blistered feet, and the sky hot on her aching
head--as hour after hour rolled away and no stream met her feverish
gaze--as her lips began to parch with thirst and her frame to faint
with hunger--then she could no longer conceal from her companion how
terribly exhausted she was. Several times he took her in his arms and
carried her a long ways, for he did not dare to pause to give her the
needed rest--every moment which kept them from the expected stream and
possible succor took away from their faint hopes of relief.

Nat Wolfe's own powerful frame was severely tried; he had staggered
more than once, for it will be remembered that he had but scanty fare
for a day or two before his rescue of Elizabeth, and the torture of
thirst was upon him too.

"Go on--oh, do go on and leave me here, I can not take another step,
and you must not kill yourself by staying to see me die. If you were
not hindered by me you could go so much faster," pleaded the young
girl, sinking at last under the meridian heat.

"Leave you, Elizabeth?" said Nat, for the first time using her name in
addressing her; and once more he swung her into his arms, though her
light form seemed made of iron, so weak was he growing. "Look ahead!
don't you see trees? don't you see the glimmer of water? I'm sure we're
not a mile from the spot."

"Yes!" she cried, in a strange, excited voice, "I see trees and
water--a lovely lake--oh, so beautiful! like those of my childhood, and
apples on the trees! cool, delicious apples and peaches. Walk faster,
Nat, to the cool, cool water--" her voice sunk to a whisper, her head
drooped--she had fainted even while longing for the beautiful mirage
which reached her strained and feverish vision.

Filled with anguish, almost cursing fate, Nat staggered on. He threw
away his rifle--his precious rifle, next in rank to his lost Kit
Carson in his affections--for he could no longer be burdened by it.
On--on--feeling that water, at least, could not be far away--until,
finally, he, too, was compelled to rest. He knew very well that
the rest might be fatal to both--but nature refused to be longer
overtasked. Sinking upon the ground, he gazed in despair upon the fair
face drooping back over his arm, the long tresses of dark hair sweeping
about it, the breath scarcely fluttering over the parched, parted lips.
To think that he had not even a drop of water with which to stay that
departing soul! He was almost mad with the bitterness of the truth. He
chafed the limp hands, he fanned the pale brow.

"At least we will die together," he murmured, fixing his lips upon hers
with the first, last kiss of love and despair, of life and death. As if
it called back her fluttering senses, she opened her eyes and smiled
upon him--a dreamy smile, yet a smile, he was sure of it, full of love
such as filled his own heart.

How long he sat holding her thus, his eyes bent upon hers, half closed
and quiet, but full of passionate devotion, he knew not. The clatter of
horses' hoofs roused them from their dying dream, and thus it was that
Buckskin Joe had his full share in the rescue of the little girl, after
all. It was the contents of his canteen and wallet which brought life
back to the perishing.

As soon as the rescued were sufficiently revived, Dr. Carollyn took the
girl before him on his horse, supporting her firmly in one arm. Joe
gave up his animal to Nat, and trudged along on foot, with that long,
loping step which takes these guides over the ground with such ease
and rapidity. He was not wrong in his conjecture as to the vicinity
of water; a few miles brought them to a stream which was one of those
depended upon by emigrants for a supply. Here it was thought best to
recruit the strength of all parties by tarrying in the shade of some
sickly cottonwoods until the sun was down, and pursue their journey
as far as possible during the cooler night. No sooner were the horses
secured and the others comfortably seated, after bathing feet and hands
in the refreshing water, than Joe crept away with his rifle down the
stream in the hopes of meeting something eatable. In the course of
half an hour they heard the crack of the rifle, followed in due course
of time by the reappearance of the little old guide, tugging a young
antelope after him.

"Thar' now, Miss 'Lizabeth, don't say I never did nothin' for you," he
remarked, casting his treasure at her feet.

"You do nothing but kind deeds to me and every one, Joe," she said,
with something of the accustomed arch smile sparkling about her eyes
and mouth.

"A piece of broiled antelope will be the best thing possible for the
young lady," said Dr. Carollyn, with almost a glow of admiration on his
dark face, as he assisted at gathering stray branches and leaves under
the trees, and kindled a fire, while Joe dressed the game.

"'Young lady!'" muttered Joe, to himself; "'young lady' be danged! If
that ain't cool to his own daughter, after bein' in such a fidget as he
was a spell ago. The circumstances is ruther curious, anyhow; and if
I don't see that ring back on Miss 'Lizabeth's finger I shall have to
tell her what I know about it."

"Joe," said Dr. Carollyn, a little while later, as he came close to the
guide to help him in cutting some steaks from the antelope, speaking
in a low voice, "of course I can trust in your discretion for the
present. It would be dangerous, in the exhausted state of my daughter,
to speak to her on any exciting subject. She knows nothing whatever of
the relationship between her and myself--I dare not reveal it yet. Wait
until she is restored to those who seem now to have the best right to
her, and she and they and yourself shall hear the story."

"I reckon you can manage your own business--_I_ shan't presume to
meddle," responded the guide, mollified immediately by this evidence of
regard for his favorite's interest, and confidence in himself; "to be
sure, any thin' startlin' would finish her up jes' now. It's dreadful
lucky we didn't turn back when we was goin' to. I'm right glad you held
out as you did. Nat Wolfe hasn't told us yet how it all come about."

"Wait till we have supped on fresh meat, and we shall have all the
particulars, no doubt."

In the mean time, the two most exhausted of the little party reclined
beneath the cottonwoods, quiet and silent. It was delight enough to see
the water glittering before them, to hear the parched leaves rustle, to
inhale the delicious odor of the venison broiling over the coals--their
frames were in that state of weakness and languor when soul and sense
are both most easily stirred. It was such a joy to feel safe, to be
cared for, to wait for the feast which kind hands were preparing. The
hour to both was one of strange, new happiness, as of souls taking
their first repose in Paradise. Although neither of them tried to
analyze their own emotions, the consciousness of what they had thought
and felt and read in each other's eyes during those perilous hours just
past was secretly thrilling the heart of each. Nat's eyes dwelt almost
constantly upon the young girl's face, who scarcely raised her own, so
conscious was she of that ardent gaze--a slight red spot in either pale
cheek telling the story of her own feelings.

While this little tableau was being silently enacted, the brow of Dr.
Carollyn was growing dark as a thunder-cloud, while his eyes flashed
covert lightning from beneath. He was troubled, discontented, angry.
He had found a child, a daughter, whose want of accomplishments suited
to the rank he should soon confer upon her was fully counterbalanced
by her exceeding beauty, grace and natural refinement. He had already
felt more pleasure than had filled his breast in seventeen years, in
dreaming of how he should develop that fine mind and cultivate those
unconscious charms. That she still retained all the innocence of
childhood his keen observation had convinced him, the first hour of
their meeting--that strange chance meeting, which had told him in that
wild place and in that unexpected way that he had a child!--a truth he
had often dreamed over, doubting and wondering. When he first went,
in the camp of the emigrants, to do a kindness to women and children,
he had been moved in a mysterious manner at the first sight of that
young face--he had felt thrilled by an electric shock, before he
perceived the ring. _That_ was the key unlocking the marvel. He knew
in an instant, more certainly than as if it had been sworn to, that he
saw his child--the child of his Annie. He knew as certainly that Annie
was dead--else, never would his daughter have been here under such
circumstances. He had no need to question any party now--indeed, he
could not at first, the shock was so sudden. That night he had crept to
the side of the slumbering girl--he had sat and watched that sweet face
bathed in the lustrous moonlight, while great, hot tears rolled over
his cheeks. Her face was not Annie's--it was very lovely, but it was
not Annie's--so fair, so angelic, with golden ringlets and deep-blue
eyes. No, this was _his own_ likeness softened by youth and sex, but
his own. The dark, curling lashes, the raven hair, the clear brunette
skin, the passionate mouth, the proud brows were the softer type of
himself. This was his child, indeed, only that the pride of his own
expression in hers was a calm melancholy, telling, ah, how piteously,
of the heart-broken musings of the desolate mother who bore her.

With tears such as men seldom have such occasion to weep, he had kept
watch, in the repose of midnight, by his daughter's slumber; then,
softly slipping the ring from her hand, he had stolen back to his own
camp-wagon, to waste the rest of the night in the recollections of
bliss and agony which the sight of that wedding-ring had brought back
almost as vividly as if the events of those long-vanished years had
happened yesterday.

It was not surprising that the next day should find him too much shaken
in spirit to feel like unraveling the thread of mystery connected with
his wife and child. He would linger by her side another day, observe
her, and the people who had her in charge, and, as soon as he was calm
enough to hear what there might be for them to tell, he would make
himself known to them.

The devastation of the tornado the following night had interrupted his
plans and plunged him into new distress. But, through all his fears for
the fate of Elizabeth, sweet hopes had whispered to him that he should
find her, that he should take her with him to the home which nature had
fitted her to adorn, and he had exulted in the thought that she was
still but a child--"in maiden meditation, fancy free"--whom he could
guide, develop, sway. She was pure and beautiful--this was enough for
him.

This was the cause of the thunder-cloud now gathering over the heaven
of his anticipations. In these two days that his child had been
snatched from him, had come a change. He saw the blush in her cheek,
the new luster in her drooping eyes. He saw the man who had found and
cherished her would be loth ever to resign the treasure he had, as it
were, secured a right to.

Nat Wolfe little suspected the searching jealousy that was reading his
every thought and action. He did, indeed, although he had scarcely
_thought_ at all about it, feel as if Elizabeth was his own--as if he
never more could leave this child to the dangers of the rude life
she was compelled to live--as if he must take her in his strong arms,
shield her against his strong breast, and keep, hereafter, the winds of
heaven from blowing upon her too roughly.

But if he _had_ been conscious that the haughty gentleman who had taken
so deep an interest in her rescue, had claims stronger than his, and
would bitterly deny _his_ right to advance his own, it would not have
changed his resolves.

Nat Wolfe was not a man to yield the mastery to any one. His will
was not to be ruled. His pride was as stubborn in its way as Dr.
Carollyn's. He despised the effeminacy of city civilization more
thoroughly than anyone despised the rudeness of his handsome,
courageous manhood.

If he could win the shy maiden to love the tangles of unshorn hair,
the tried strength of his protecting arm, the sincere passion of his
untutored heart, she should be his by the right of affinity.

The lion of his nature lay, however, for the present, unaroused. He
only dreamed of the young form that he had held through the chill
watches of the preceding night, and of the soft eyes that had answered
his own with mute promises of deathless love in moments they had
thought their last of earth--of the long, wild kiss with which he had
sought to hold the sinking soul of the girl on his breast. And now they
were safe and well again, almost strong, drinking delicious draughts of
life, free to love, to live, to be happy!

The welcome supper was prepared. Dr. Carollyn himself attended to
the quantity and quality of Elizabeth's share of the feast. Every
morsel was ambrosial. The whole party were renovated by the needed
refreshment. Nat told the story of his rescue of the kidnapped girl,
his voice quivering slightly over the mention of Kit Carson's death.

The faithful horses who had borne Joe and the Doctor on their long,
sultry ride, received their share of attention, being carefully
watered, and fed on the short, coarse grass along the bank of the
stream. Then, as the sunset hour approached, with wallets well
filled with cooked antelope, and canteens overflowing with water,
the quartette set out in good spirits, along the trail, hoping by
traveling nearly all night, and making good speed next day, to overtake
their company. To Buckskin Joe it was reserved to walk, he generously
resigning his animal to Nat, while Elizabeth, as before, rode with Dr.
Carollyn.

Without further accidents, and with only such events as were common to
the journey, the party reached the encamped emigrants at the time they
expected. A great shout of joy rung over the plain as the lost ones
were welcomed back to the anxious company.




CHAPTER VII.

THE REVELATION.

 I shrink from the embittered close
   Of my own melancholy tale;
 'Tis long since I have waked my woes--
   And nerve and voice together fail.--Willis.

 How may this little tablet feign
   The features of a face,
 Which o'erinforms with loveliness,
   Its proper share of space.--Pinckney.


"It was right kind of you, stranger, to put yourself out so much to
help find our Lizzie," remarked Mrs. Wright, after the first excitement
of the morning was over.

Dr. Carollyn had just returned from a visit to the wagon, where lay
the man with the broken leg, who was doing as well as possible. The
camping-ground where they had been so long detained was, fortunately,
pretty well supplied with grass and water, so that the cattle were
rather enjoying their holiday. The men had been kept busy repairing the
damages done by the tornado, and now were in unusually good spirits,
both on account of the safe return of the lost ones, as also in the
prospect that another day's successful march would bring them into the
belt of comparatively fertile prairie at the foot of the mountains. The
dreaded part of the journey was over; to-morrow there would be wood
and grass and water in plenty--in three days at furthermost they would
be at the scene of their anticipation--their El Dorado; to realize
something of their feverish dreams or to be overwhelmed with bitter
disappointment--which?--there was plenty reason to fear the latter; but
the human heart is more elastic than any other earthly substance--it
will hope, it _must_ hope--it does hope always; and these men talked as
if seas of gold were rolling at their feet.

"We shall never forget it, sir, so long as we live," added Mr. Wright,
looking affectionately over at the maiden, who was sitting on a
buffalo-skin under a canopy made of a wagon-cover stretched upon some
poles.

She looked wearied out with exposure and excitement, but her smile was
one of the most brilliant content; and she had not refused little Mary
a place in her lap, fatigued as she was. The child had missed her so
much as to fairly pine, and was now close in the shelter of her arms,
sleeping, and laughing in her sleep. The two boys hung about, looking
at their cousin as at some new and wonderful creature, their pleasure
being testified by bashful smiles and giggles.

"Perhaps I have been more selfish in the matter than any of you
dream," replied the gentleman, with a peculiar look at the young girl.
"Elizabeth, you are not strong enough to hold that little one; let me
give it to its mother. And now, I'm going to sit here, and tell you
something strange."

He sat down on the robe beside her, and lifted one of her small,
brown hands in his; there was something in his manner which arrested
the attention of all. Mrs. Wright leaned forward, her husband took
his tobacco-pipe from his mouth, leaning his elbows on his knees;
Buckskin Joe, who was on the alert for this little episode, strolled
alongside, standing, with a great quid in one cheek, and whittling
away with his hunting-knife at a green switch; while Golden Arrow, who
was also lounging on the grass, and near enough to hear every uttered
word, straightened himself up, with eyes that began to flash as he saw
the way in which Elizabeth's hand was taken possession of. His first
thought was that this proud, reserved gentleman was about to make a
declaration of love to the young girl, and the maddening jealousy which
fired his veins taught him the full strength of the feeling she had
awakened. The words which followed, however, gave a new direction to
his fears.

"What do you say, friends--do you see any resemblance between this
maiden and myself?" and the speaker drew the soft, oval face up beside
his older and sallower countenance.

"La me! if they don't look enough alike to be father and child! don't
they, Tim?" exclaimed Mrs. Wright.

"They sartainly do look alike, wife."

"Since we look so much like parent and daughter, and since this maiden
has neither father nor mother, why not give her up to me, and let me
have her for my child? This life you are bringing her up to is too hard
and rough for her."

"So 'tis--so 'tis, stranger!" said Timothy, "but it's the best we can
do for her--and we couldn't spare Lizzie. No! no!"

"You have others to provide for--I have no one. I am rich; I could give
her all she wishes and ought to have."

"Wal, in the first place, stranger, if you're in earnest, you'd have
to give purty satisfactory proofs of who and what you was, before you
get our Lizzie. As for the rest, we love her too much to want to be
selfish--and she can speak for herself."

"What do you say, Elizabeth? Will you be my daughter?"

She made no reply; she was looking at him with a startled, wistful
gaze--something was stirring in her blood and brain which moved her
mysteriously--her subtle sense was half conscious of the affinity
between this stranger and herself.

"You never knew your father, Elizabeth?"

"Never."

"Or your mother?"--how his voice trembled.

"She has been dead many years--since I was three years old--but I
remember her," and the tears rushed into voice and eyes.

The cautious prudence with which Dr. Carollyn meant to approach the
avowal was swept away by a sudden torrent of emotion--tears blinded
him, his lips quivered, he endeavored in vain to speak, to compose
himself--until finally he caught the surprised girl to his breast, held
her closely, exclaiming:

"Oh, my lost Annie! you are her child, yes, you are her child and mine.
You are indeed my own flesh and blood--I am your father, my darling!"

"Wal, if that don't beat all," was Mrs. Wright's comment amid the
silence of the rest of the group. "I always told you, husband, this
very thing would turn up some time."

"How do I know he's speakin' truth?" growled Timothy.

"Did you know Elizabeth's mother?" asked Mr. Carollyn.

"I reckon we did, when she lived with us full four years--she was with
us before this child was born, and stayed with us till she went to a
better place--to the heaven where she belonged," and the woman put her
apron up to her eyes.

"I will show you the likeness of my wife," said Dr. Carollyn, putting
Elizabeth gently aside, and drawing a miniature case from an inner
vest-pocket over his heart.

Wright and his wife sprung forward to look at it.

"It's her!" they both cried, lingering as if they could not look
enough--another was also hanging tranced above it, the maiden gazing at
the picture of her mother, whose girlish face was scarcely older than
her own--gazing, breathless and tearless, upon the delicate, lovely
vision whose blue eyes looked out of ripples of golden hair like an
angel's out of a cloud.

"It is my mother," she said, "I have never forgotten her."

"And I am your father--oh, say that your heart no longer denies me the
title."

The young girl looked into his face, full of the most yearning love
and anguish; her own soul was deeply stirred. The dreams with which
her melancholy childhood had been haunted, had ever pictured to her
something different from the commonplace, narrow, poverty-enthralled
life about her. Her vague memories of a mother, beautiful and refined,
together with long musings over the few jewels and fine articles of
clothing she had left, had helped her to build up a world as different
from the coarse scenes of her daily experience as Paradise from common
earth. It was in this world of dreams she moved when those dark eyes
floated with those far-away, lustrous looks which made those about her
feel that she was different from them, and leave her undisturbed to her
reveries. Kind and gentle as she had ever been to her friends, winning
their warmest love, she was conscious of affections and aspirations
which their companionship never called forth.

"Speak--let me hear you call me father!"

The deep, musical tones, whose singular power seldom failed to move
those whom he addressed with earnestness, and now quivering with
untold pathos, pierced to her heart; her bosom fluttered like a
frightened bird's--her eyes turned to each one of the group, those
true, affectionate friends of hers, and lastly, lingered an instant
on those of Nat Wolfe, who had risen and was standing motionless,
regarding her with a keen look--then her hand slipped into Dr.
Carollyn's, she kissed his cheek and called him--

"Father."

When she thought of him again, Nat had disappeared; he had turned
abruptly from the scene, and was walking off the pain and anger which
tormented him, out of sight of the camp. He was more wordly-wise
than Elizabeth; when he saw her yield to the claim of this courtly
father, he knew that all her old associations were to be shaken off
like a worn-out garment. For hours he strode back and forth along the
outskirts of the camp, like a sentinel doing duty most conscientiously,
his mind in such a tumult as had not shaken it for years.

"It is my fate," he muttered. "The soft blessings of a woman's love
are never to warm this rough experience of mine. I was mad--a fool, to
dream that it could be! I will not suffer the whole accursed thing over
again," he continued. "It is enough to have had life blighted once,
as mine was blighted. Why have I allowed this flower to spring again
on the withered stalk? I should have known some frost would blacken
it. The Fates should have made me more heartless or her less pure
and lovely. What man could have cherished that innocent girl through
days and nights, seeing her so confiding, so entirely a child in
heart yet a woman in beauty, and not have felt the hard suspicion and
dislike within him melt away? I wish I had never met her? I wish that
confounded dark-skinned Doctor had chanced in some other company. I'm a
fool to believe in woman! Two days ago she told me with her dying eyes,
that she loved me--to-morrow she will tell me that she has changed her
mind. The prospect of a little worldly splendor and flattery will turn
any woman's head--or heart!"

Poor Nat! it was no wonder he spoke bitterly--that he stamped and
stalked about in a manner quite different from his usual careless
dignity. Far back in the past of his early manhood, when his fresh,
boyish soul trusted all, and adored every woman as something to be
revered and idolized, he had loved a girl of his own age. He was not a
hunter of bison and Indians in those days--he was a handsome, proud,
well-educated youth, the son of an esteemed clergyman, who, though
poor, as is the wont of village ministers, managed to send his oldest
son to college, and was glad, as even a minister has a right to be, to
see him so bright, so graceful, so brilliant in intellect--the peer of
any of the young men with whom he associated.

The Rev. Mr. Wolfe had never been so unwise as to plan that his son
should follow his own profession; for that Nathaniel was never made for
the quiet, severely-disciplined life of his father was self-evident.
Reckless, gay, full of wit and courage, it was yet impossible for the
surliest deacon in his father's church to find fault with any action
of his life. His morals were pure, his impulses good and generous--the
deficiency in his character was that those impulses were not under the
control of his judgment, and that his feelings were allowed too rash a
rule.

He was just the young man to make the most devoted and winning lover.
The maidens were all pleased with his attentions; and, of course,
before he was fairly out of college, he was desperately enamored of the
belle and beauty of the village, the 'Judge's' daughter. She liked him,
too; she could not resist his handsome face and delicious devotion;
she allowed herself to be engaged to him--and then, of course, he had
to think of marriage, and the future. He had nothing, and she would be
quite an heiress; he was too proud to live off her family, who wouldn't
have permitted it, if he had been willing; he decided to study law, an
offer having been made him by a friend of his father's in the city of
New York--bade his darling betrothed a two years' passionate farewell,
and set out, full of hope and ambition, to begin the struggle for
the anticipated reward. Before his probation was much more than half
over, he received news of the marriage of his affianced, to a wealthy
widower, a squire of a neighboring town, who had seen and admired her
beauty.

His friends thought that the rudeness of the shock would produce a
reaction which would enable him to despise and forget her, while
the disappointment would strengthen his character and subdue his
too-romantic ideal. But they did not know how peculiarly the blow would
fall upon his proud, dreamy, sensitive feelings. Having been offered
the transaction of some rather unpleasant but profitable business in
the far West, by the lawyer in whose office he was, and who did not
wish to attend to the matter himself, he accepted the offer, with the
secret resolution to never return to the mockery and falsehood of
civilized society.

Upon reaching the wild settlements for which he was destined, the rude
freedom of life in these places was a balm to his wounded and outraged
spirit. Naturally fond of adventure, and brave as reckless, his present
contempt for life added to his courage. He made friends with the
sturdy trappers and guides; he learned their modes of living, joined
eagerly in their pursuits, and soon outdid them in their own peculiar
accomplishments. An incident which occurred quite early in his western
experience, where a whole family of helpless women and children were
savagely murdered by a prowling band of Indians, turned his dislike
upon them. These barbarous bands were then the terror of the white
settlers--the only too well-founded dread of them lying like a dark and
stealthy shadow at every isolated cabin-door, making children shriek in
their sleep, and the faces of mothers to grow pale as they rocked the
rude cradles wherein their innocent infants slumbered.

Those who have had an opportunity of observing how speedily men change
when going to some new country where the firm restraints of law and
public opinion are taken away--a change which affects morals and
actions, manners and dispositions as quickly as it does their dress
and conversation--will not be surprised that ten years of border-life
had changed the ardent youth into the 'Nat Wolfe' of hunter fame,
whose name was the admiration of his associates and the terror of all
cowardly savages.

Yet, beneath all the roughness of his hunter's frock and neglected
locks, he was always the superior man in every company. There was a
reserve and dignity about him which added to the respect paid to his
remarkable skill and courage; his deeds were always honest and manly,
his language free from real coarseness, his person neat, with a little
touch of elegance even about his wild costume. While he was social
and friendly on all the topics of their common life and adventure, he
never betrayed his past history or his private feelings to any one. The
grace of his manners, the beauty of his countenance, the superiority
of his intellect, gave him great influence with men who, sincerely
as they admired these traits in him, would yet have despised him had
he not proved himself fully their equal in coolness, daring, and the
expert wisdom required by his pursuits. Thus Nat Wolfe had become the
pride and model of the hunters and guides of a vast region of prairie
and forest; while the Indians, as we have said, gave him the name of
"Golden Arrow," both on account of the brightness of his hair, and the
preternatural swiftness and sureness they believed his darts, spears,
knives and rifles to possess.

Curiously enough, right in the pathway of this hunter-skeptic, this
man who had fled from the refinements of life because he believed
them to gild only deceit and selfishness, the Fates had thrown this
young girl, Elizabeth, a being so innocent of all worldly guile, so
ignorant of life, so untempted, artless and pure, yet so lovely in
spirit and form as to be fit for any sphere. They had thrown her in
his pathway, left her in his protection as if purposely, that he might
be made to know what truth and beauty there still could be in some
women's characters; they had shaken the fixed resolves of years, melted
away his stoicism like ice in tropic sunlight--until he was warmed,
thrilled, entranced--made over again in all the delicious trust and
poetry of his boyhood--ready to give this maiden a love as sweet and
hopeful as the first enthusiastic dream--Fate, or circumstance, had
done this--what for? To drive him back again into a desolation more
dreary than before! Ere he could fashion his hopes into words, ere he
could ask the maiden to share with him the life of mingled luxury and
wildness which he had painted as best fitted for both their natures,
this specious tempter must come, in the shape of a haughty and wealthy
father, to snatch away his Eve and feed her on the apples of knowledge.
It was no wonder his thoughts were bitter as he tramped to and fro
beneath the large, bright stars of the prairie-sky, which here seemed
to come almost close enough to earth to be reached by his weary longing.

In the mean time, Dr. Carollyn was deeply engaged with the Wrights,
listening, the most of the time with his face bowed and hidden in his
hands, to the particulars of his wife's residence with this family.
They were no relatives of hers; although they had taught Elizabeth to
regard them as such, for the sake of making the orphan feel at home, as
if she had a claim on them.

"They were a new-married couple themselves," Mrs. Wright said, and
"had just sot up for themselves in a little house her father had
built for them on a part of his own farm, in O-- county, York State.
They hadn't been to housekeeping but a few days when the lady came
along, and wanted to board with them for the summer. She had no
family then, nothin' much to do, and was right glad to take such a
nice boarder, who paid them enough and well for all they did for
her. Their place was small, but it was pleasant--looked out over an
orchard and wheat-fields, off to Lake Ontary, lying as blue as the
sky ag'in it. The lady had a neat chamber to herself, where she could
look at the lake night and day, if she wanted to, which she mostly
did. They knew of course there was something queer about her comin'
there alone; she give her name as Mrs. St. John--but they didn't like
to ask her questions; and they couldn't have been made to believe any
thing bad about her. Some of the neighbors did talk and make remarks;
but she and Tim set more store by the lady than they did by their own
relatives; nobody that knew her, but would see, to oncet, she was a
perfect angel--(ah, jealous man, how bitterly that unmeant dart stung
thee!)--she was always so sad and quiet, but so gentle, and didn't
make any fuss about any thing. When it became plain she was going to
be a mother before long, she took me to her room oncet, when Tim was
gone, and showed me her marriage-certificate, only she covered up her
husband's name; and she told me there had been a difficulty; but if she
should die and her baby should live, she would leave a letter for me to
open, so I could give the child to its father, that he should do by it
as he ought.

"Wal, she was very sick, but she didn't die; she got 'round again, but
was never well--she took the consumption--sort of faded away like. She
stayed with us all the time. We hadn't no children of our own yet,
and we sot our hearts on our little girl--the prettiest, sweetest,
cunningest little thing that ever was! She saw how we loved little
Lizzie, and she finally told me, a few weeks 'fore she died, that we
might keep the child, and do by it as our own--that she believed the
poor little creature would be heart-broken to be sent off to cold and
cruel strangers--'we loved her,' she said, and we cried and said we
did, and would do far more for that baby than as if it was our own. So
she put away the ring, and what little things she had, and a couple o'
hundred dollars in gold, in a box to be kept till the child was growed
up, with a letter to her, to be read when she was eighteen; she saved
out money to buy herself a shroud and coffin; and so she went at last,
as quiet as a lamb."

"And left no word for me at the very last," cried her listener.

"Maybe she would have said somethin' at the last, but she went before
anybody knew it. She was about her room the day before she died; that
night we heard her speak, and got right up and went into her chamber,
but she was dead when we reached her. Since then we've kept our promise
as well as we could, haven't we, Lizzie?--which is poor enough at the
best, for Timothy has been unlucky, and we've seen hard times, and so
poor Lizzie has had rough times."

"Yes, we've had bad luck," said Mr. Wright, "we mostly have had all
kind of misfortunes; but the Lord has blessed that little girl to us,
for all."

That firmness of will, that selfishness of purpose, which is apt to
accompany the intense pride and jealousy of a disposition like Dr.
Carollyn's, was already working out the problem in his mind of how he
was to separate his child from these associations in which she had
grown up. This very evening, while moved to agony and remorse keen
as that he felt the first day of his desolation, and amid the very
gratitude the recital of these kind-hearted people awakened, he was
conscious of regret that the ties between them and his should be so
strong, and of a resolve that they must be severed. Yet he was far too
generous and noble to wish to wrong the feelings of any; he did not
intend to hint at any abrupt or long-continued separation; he wished
to reward, as far as money could, the care and expense his child
had been to these adopted relatives, to lighten the burden of their
poverty, while into the heart of his daughter he thought to win his way
gradually, and when he once had her to himself, he feared not but that
the awakening of dormant tastes, the bewitching influences of ease and
refinement, would complete the work of alienation. The proud love of
his passionate nature, so long doomed to suspense and solitude, fixed
now upon his child, as it had once fixed on the orphan Annie St. John,
with the wish to absorb and possess its object utterly. Could he then
brook a rival at the very onset?--that rival a lover, and a man of the
stamp of Nat Wolfe? He had other dreams for this beautiful girl--"sole
daughter of his house and heart"--and the hunter, walking his impatient
beat a mile away, knew it as well as himself--knew it better, for Dr.
Carollyn had not yet realized the actualities of the case. If he took
Elizabeth away with him to his eastern home, that, of course, would be
the end of any incipient fancy which might be growing in her mind for
her dashing preserver.

Every glance of Dr. Carollyn's at the ungainly calico frock which his
daughter wore, every illiterate expression of her friends, grated upon
his feelings. It was to him the most powerful evidence of the deadly
nature of the blow he had struck into the heart of his sensitive,
confiding wife, that she had sternly resolved to leave her little
one with such people, rather than send her to _him_--"cruel and cold
strangers," she had said, but she had meant him, or, at least when she
felt that her own protection could no longer be exercised over their
babe, she would have consigned it to him. He dared not linger upon the
history of that past time--but now, if his wife could look from the
heaven where she was sheltered from the cruelties of earth, she should
see that the tenderness in which he should wrap their child from every
breath of any chilling care or sorrow, would satisfy her yet.

As for Elizabeth, she was absorbed in conjecturing what the difficulty
could have been which alienated such a mother from such a father in the
very honeymoon of their wedded youth--of this she was thinking far more
than of the change in her own prospects.




CHAPTER VIII.

FIRE IN THE FOREST.

 What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?
 Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

 Locksley Hall.

           Too much horrified to speak,
           They can only shriek, shriek,
 In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
 In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire!

 The Bells.


Nat Wolfe and Buckskin Joe were traversing a wild pine forest on the
eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. As they came out on a projecting
ledge of rock from which they had a view of the mountain and plain
beneath them, they turned to look back over the ground they had passed.
Through the clear, bracing September air they distinctly saw where the
little cluster of cabins was gathered about Pike's Peak, twenty miles
away, by the smoke of the chimneys hovering over the settlement.

"We're purty nigh onto the spot now, if I recollect right," said Joe;
"it's over a year sence I was here. Let's eat our grub--here's a basin
of water in this rock a purpose for us to drink out of; after we've
rested a spell we'll push on and find the exact locality. Cur'us, isn't
it?--I didn't dream, when I traveled over this mountain the last time,
that so many thousand fools would have sot foot on it in less'n a year.
We made up our minds, then, me and Jim did, thar' was gold in this
region--and I ain't sartain but we're responsible for givin' the fever
to a good many," added the little old fellow, with a quiet chuckle.
"It's a mighty catchin' disease--took more easily than the small-pox.
The wust of it is, I'm afraid it'll prove fatal to a good many of them
poor, white-livered chaps as have come expecting to crowd their pockets
with rocks as big as goose-eggs, all ready picked up. I reckon Wright's
one of the wust-up of any. He ain't naterally got any pluck, and he's
out o' money and vittals, and instid of workin' for hisself and makin'
thirty or forty dollars a day, he's had to hire out for a dollar a
day and keepin.' I'm sorry for his wife, poor critter. But she's got
more sperit than he has, and 'll make more money. She's takin' in
washin' and cookin' for the men, and airns a good lot, I'll be bound.
I shouldn't wonder if _she_ got along and laid up money--which he'll
be sure to borrow and have 'the luck' to lose. Have some o' this dried
buffalo, Wolfe?--it's better'n your cold bacon.

"I don't wonder that saller-faced Doctor is anxious to get Miss
'Lizabeth away from such a hole as Pike's Peak," continued Joe, who
grew talkative over his dried meat and whisky and water, giving a keen
side-look at his companion as he spoke. "'Tain't no place for the likes
of her--eh, Nat, what do you think? They say he'll leave with the first
company that starts back, and take her along. I've a mind to hire out
as guide, and see 'em safely back as far as Nebraska City."

"I wish you would," was the hunter's brief reply.

"Why don't _you_ undertake the job, Wolfe?"

"I'm afraid my company wouldn't be agreeable," with a bitter laugh.

"Sho! it's the first time I ever knowed of _you_ playin' the sneak, Nat
Wolfe."

"What do you mean?" rather fiercely.

"You needn't turn on me like a trod nettle, Nat. I wouldn't like to
make you mad--cos we're alone out here in the woods and you're the
biggest, and nobody'd ever know what had become of Buckskin Joe if you
should chaw me up. But say, now, r'ally, I'll bet a thousand dollars,
to be paid the day after we _find our lead_, that you hain't never
asked that young lady whether she liked your comp'ny or not. Come, now,
own up the corn."

"I'm not so humble as to put myself in the way of being walked over,"
was the haughty reply.

"Oh--oh, jest as I 'spected. I ain't a ladies' man--that is, not
lately," said the little guide, running his fingers through his short
hair as if moved by ancient reminiscences, "but I allers thought it
didn't disgrace a feller if a purty woman did put her foot on his neck.
How in thunder do you expeck to know for sartain whether she likes you
or not, if you're too mean to ask her. P'raps you want _her_ to do
the courtin'! Mighty generous you be, ain't you. All I can say is, if
you let her go off without findin' out precisely her sentiments, you
deserve to lose her--and ought to be thrashed besides for breaking her
purty heart, Nat Wolfe!"

"Breaking her heart!" echoed Nat, in a softer voice, his eyes bent
wistfully upon the blue smoke wreathing the distant settlement.
"There's no danger of that--her heart's already mended, and stuffed
full of silk dresses and diamonds, young men and flattery, elegant
houses and rich friends."

"A woman wouldn't be a woman, if she didn't have a hankerin' after silk
and satin and other fixin's--specially if she's young and handsome. I
don't see any thing to prevent your supplyin' her with a fair share of
sech--particularly if we're lucky in findin' what we're after on this
tramp. As for that pesky father of hers, he'd no business poking along
here jest at this time--though he's a perfect gentleman, and we hain't
no reason to hate him as I knows on. 'Lizabeth's known you as long as
she has _him_--and unless Buckskin Joe misses his guess more'n usual,
she thinks a good deal more of the youngest one of the two. I should
like to know if you think it's fair not to give her a chance to speak
for herself?"

Nat smiled, rather sadly however, at the indignant, remonstrating tone
of the guide; he felt cheered by his words, though, and brightened
visibly, as he put away the remainder of his dinner in his wallet, and
sprung to his feet, saying:

"Come on, then, my friend. Let's try for the gold, first, seeing we've
come this far in search of it."

For a while they strode along in silence. The bracing air was fragrant
with resinous odors, the dead tassels of the pines made a soft carpet
under their feet; with rifles ready loaded to repel any wild animal
who might see fit to resent their intrusion into his solitudes, eager,
athletic, accustomed to the forest, they pressed onward with as little
hesitation as if following some well-known highway.

It was a wild and glittering hope which danced before these sober men,
leading them into the depths of mountain solitudes, hitherto trodden
by white men seldom or never. Gold, the all-fascinating siren, allured
them. Their hearts bounded, their pulses beat to the music of that
whisper; the winds breathed it through the tall pines murmuring above
them; the sunlight sparkled only to remind them of its glitter. Fond
master-passion of the universal heart! the love of gold, dearer even
than the love of woman, for it holds the key to that love, and to every
other earthly delight.

The little, quaint, withered guide was enough of a philosopher to pause
all of a sudden in their journey, and say, with that peculiar quirk of
the mouth:

"What in creation am _I_ chasing off here after a gold mine for?
S'posin' I should stumble on a few hundred thousands or millions, what
on airth would I do with my share? When I've plenty of tobaccy in my
box, meat in my wallet and powder in my flask, I'm happy. I couldn't
live without trampin' and huntin'. Yit here I am as crazy as the rest
of 'em. Fact is, we're all a set of fools.

"Tell you what I will do," he continued, a little later, having
evidently been dwelling on the subject: "if we strike a rich lead
I'll give my share to Miss 'Lizabeth. She'd know how to make it fly,
I reckon! As for me, I've neither wife nor child, and all I want is
enough to keep me in tobaccy."

Buckskin Joe had no need of riches; but when, an hour later, they
emerged from the woods into a wild and rock ravine, down the center of
which a little stream came dashing and roaring, leaping from rock to
rock, broken into foam one moment, and mended with silver bands the
next--when they emerged into this secluded place, over which great
masses of mountain hung threateningly, dark with frowning pines, rough
with water-washed rocks, he threw up his cap, and shouted aloud:

"Here's the spot, Wolfe! Unless I'm more mistaken than ever I war' in
my life, thar's gold enough in this ravine to pave the ground a mile
square for Miss 'Lizabeth to walk over. I'll show you my reasons in
less'n half an hour."

The hot blood rushed into the hunter's cheeks; a bright light danced in
his eye; his breath came more quick with the excitement of the hour.
Was he about to lay his hand on untold treasures? He believed so.

The circumstances which had brought the two adventurers to this remote
and unsuspected locality were these: Upon the previous year, Buckskin
Joe, crossing the mountains with a brother trapper, all alone, with
no other object but game, furs and "the fun of the thing," happened
upon this wild, romantic and picturesque spot. Resolved to follow the
ravine up the mountain side, they commenced the difficult work of
making their way from rock to rock, hight to hight, charmed with the
noisy play of the stream. Coming into a little dell where the water
was gathered into a basin worn in the rock, from which it overflowed
and tumbled down a moss-grown steep, Joe stooped to drink, when his
eyes caught the glitter of a large pebble lying in the bottom of the
basin. He plunged in his arm and brought up a lump of pure, soft gold,
nearly uncontaminated with other substances, and weighing nearly a
pound. They lingered around the spot several days, finding half a dozen
smaller specimens; then, having no way to bring off much treasure, and
Joe's companion here injuring himself by an accident with his rifle,
they were obliged to leave the mountains. They took their gold with
them, and their story spread like wild-fire; but they betrayed to no
one the exact locality of their discovery.

Another company made some discoveries in the same region that autumn.
The news traveled through the winter and spring, and the summer saw
people from all parts of the United States on their way to the new El
Dorado.

So tardy and indifferent had Buckskin Joe been about profiting further
by his good luck, that this was the first trip to the mountains since
the time of his fortunate visit; the companion of his former trip was
dead; he was sole possessor of the knowledge of a "lead" which, he was
convinced, after a few days' observation of the "diggins" about Pike's
Peak, was richer than any of them. He had come to the mature resolve
to take Nat Wolfe into confidence and partnership--especially since he
had observed the threatening clouds lowering about the two young people
since the advent of the father into the interests of the group.

The result of a talk he had held with the moody hunter, a fortnight
after the arrival of the company at their destination, was this private
expedition, upon which the two set off, unsuspected by others.

With his present increased knowledge of mining, Joe "calkilated" to
pick up enough stray nuggets in the quiet basins and gullies of the
stream to make the two men rich beyond their wishes, before it would
be necessary to take any trouble of machinery. He was sure that the
accumulated washings of centuries were lying ready to their hands.

With eager, watchful eyes and glowing veins the gold hunters pushed
forward up the difficult ravine. The stream was now dwindled to about
its slenderest proportions; it was an excellent season in which to
attempt their plans; but the brief September afternoon began to darken
before they had laid their hands upon any tangible evidence to give
substance to their brilliant dreams. The sun, sinking early behind the
mountains, threw their deep shadows over the way, often slippery and
uncertain.

"Wal, we're here, and all ready for work in the mornin' bright and
'arly," said Buckskin Joe, as the night drew closer. "Our best way is
to climb back into the woods ag'in; we can have a comfortable bed of
boughs and pine-tossels, and begin to-morrer. Thar's no hurry--nobody's
goin' to carry our fortins off in the night. So let's make ourselves
cosy. By this time to-morrer we'll be independent."

Clinging to roots of trees, washed bare by spring freshets, and to
ledges of dark and chilly rock, they swung themselves up out of the
cool ravine into the pleasant forest.

"We won't kindle a fire here in the midst of this pitchy stuff,"
remarked Joe; "the woods is jest like a match, ready to go off at the
least rub, at this season of the year. Otherwise we might kill a brace
of bird, and brile them for supper. As it is, we'll make out on a cold
smack."

By the time the repast was taken, evening had shut them in. The guide,
healthily fatigued after their long tramp, with a look to his knife and
rifle in case of a stray bear, composed himself soon upon his primeval
couch, and was breathing the deep and regular breath of a good sleeper
long before Nat could close his excited eyes. Dreams of the expected
successes of this search, mingled with softer dreams of the fair girl
from whom he seemed so far separated--as if she never had been near his
heart, and never could be--thronged upon his brain, as he looked up at
the great silver stars peering here and there through rifts of the pine
branches far overhead.

The wind, according to its nightly habit, began to rise, and to rush
roaring down the mountain side, kissing the dark boughs of the pines
till they wailed in unison. It was a solemn, sweet and mighty music,
pleasant to the soul and sense of the hunter as he lay there dreaming
of the woman he loved. But as the hours crept on to midnight, he, too,
slept.

       *       *       *       *       *

Buckskin Joe, as he stirred uneasily in his sleep, had a strange,
disagreeable dream. He thought the water in the ravine began to rise
with an awful roar--to rise until it overflowed gully and wood--till
his ears were stunned by its tumult--till it reached and overflowed him
where he lay--he was drowning! and in the spasmodic efforts he made to
buffet the horrible stream, he finally awakened. Yes, he was awake; but
where he was, or what was the matter, he could not recall. He felt as
if a thousand pounds lay upon his chest, pressing him in the earth--he
heard a dull, curious, continuous roar, like the incessant discharge of
cannon, through which pierced sharp reports, as of volleys of musketry;
there was a lurid glare around him that was not the light of moon
or sun--for an instant the rough hunter thought of hell! A flake of
burning pine-cone falling upon his face revealed the truth. Great God,
the forest was on fire!

As the appalling conviction rushed upon him, he raised upon his
elbows and looked about. A sea of fire spread around him in every
direction--they were already ringed in that awful circle. High overhead
flew great sheets and banners of flame, snatched up by the wind and
flung from tree-top to tree-top, while a fiery shower fell constantly,
drifting down through the lower foliage, which here was not fully
kindled. Dense masses of hot and suffocating smoke now shut him in, and
were again lifted for a moment by the howling wind. His first thought
was of his companion.

He shouted, he felt about him, but obtained no response. Nat had gone
to sleep about five yards from him, to the left. He rolled himself over
and over until he reached what ought to be the spot, and here he groped
about in the blinding smoke, calling sharply upon his friend, who, he
was afraid, might be already overpowered. While he was making these
efforts he choked, his brain reeled--he felt consciousness slipping
from him as the dense vapor hung thicker and hotter about him. But
before he entirely lost himself in that deadly struggle, a fierce gush
of wind came rushing under the ocean of flame which roared far above.
It caught up and whirled away the smoke; he breathed comparatively free
again; and in that instant of salvation an instinct whispered to him of
the cool ravine, of the delicious waters only such a little distance
away. Better to fling himself down and be dashed to pieces on the rocks
than to die by this torturing element which threatened him.

He crept along the ground with his face close to the earth. Once or
twice the smoke grappled with him--as often a blessed breath of air
came creeping after. Suddenly a cold draft struck him on the brow: he
knew that it came up from the ravine. Gasping, exhausted, he made yet
another effort, reached the edge of the rock, dragged himself over,
hanging by his hands, and dropped, in the darkness, knowing nothing of
the distance beneath him, nor what cruel reception he might meet from
objects below.

For a short time after the fall he lay stunned by the shock, gradually
reviving to a sense of safety--that he was alive and whole. He could
hear the blessed music of the running stream; all was deep darkness
where he was, but he crept along until he could dip his hand in the
water, and cool his scorched face and parched tongue. Lifting up his
head, he could see the glare of the burning forest against the sky,
and the huge showers of sparks floating off into space. Men pray
instinctively in times of peril and preservation; Buckskin Joe, albeit
unused to prayer, uttered a fervent exclamation of thankfulness for his
escape. The next instant he buried his face in his hands with a groan.
He had thanked God for his own welfare, but he shuddered as the fate of
his companion rushed over him.

It seemed a long time to him before the break of day enabled him to
do any thing; it was hard work for him to remain idle while a chance
remained in favor of Nat's escape. The glorious September morning was
dull with hovering smoke in this vicinity; Joe discovered, by its
light, that he had dropped some thirty feet down a precipice and
lodged upon a shelf of rock so well cushioned with earth and moss that
he had escaped without broken bones.

As he stood up and essayed to walk, he found himself stiff with
bruises. Following the ledge upon which he was until he came around the
precipice to a now broken and uneven fork, which promised sufficient
foothold, he began to climb back to the forest. When he reached the
surface of the wood, he found the fire still burning; the tops of the
trees were consumed, but the trunks were standing like pillars of fire,
and the ground--covered inches thick with dry pine-tassels, cones and
other tinder-like combustibles--was now one mass of smoldering fire,
upon which it was impossible to set foot.

The smoke was suffocating, coming as it did from the green wood of the
trunks and branches, which were slowly charring without being consumed.
If Nat Wolfe had not escaped by such an almost miraculous chance as had
occurred to the guide, then he had indeed met a terrible death--nothing
but his ashes could now remain upon that vast bed of fire.

There was life nowhere but in the deep ravine; back to that Buckskin
Joe descended, with a heart of lead. Nearly all day he wandered up and
down its intricacies, calling aloud, and getting only mocking echoes
for answer.

He thought little of gold that day--he would have given a pound of gold
for a pound of bread; and he would have given all the treasures he ever
expected to find in the Rocky Mountains for a sight of his friend,
alive and well before him. His acquaintance with Nat Wolfe had not been
of long duration; but there was that in the stuff which Nat was made of
which had secured the old guide's warmest friendship and admiration.

As the day wore away he gradually abandoned the faint hope to which,
against reason, he had clung. Forlornly he set his face homeward. He
would starve to death if he did not make his way out of that barren
gully; there was no game, and if there had been, his rifle had been
left to destruction. It being impossible to attempt the forest, all
he could do was to follow the water course until he could reach some
track which was clear of the fire, through which he might strike for
the settlement. That night he lay on the damp rock; the next day,
hungry, rheumatic and low-spirited, he continued on a few miles, came
out upon the open mountain side, and, guided by the sun and his general
knowledge of the country, pushed forward for Pike's Peak. He could see
the forest-fires still raging to the south of him; but the wind had
carried them from his present vicinity. A few prickly pears from a tree
which he found on his way gave him a welcome though insufficient dinner.

About sunset he entered Pike's Peak settlement, which he startled with
the news of the fate of Nat Wolfe.




CHAPTER IX.

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

         My steps are turned away;
           Yet my eyes linger still
           On their beloved hill,
         In one long, last survey;
 Gazing, through tears that multiply the view,
         Their passionate adieu.--Mrs. Barrett.


"There is a train starts homeward to-morrow, Elizabeth. We can not have
a better opportunity for going East under good protection. It will be
no easier for you to part from your friends a month or a year from
now--so I think best to warn you of my decision. You'll be happy with
your father, will you not? I am sure you will. This is no place for
you. I can surround you with circumstances which will make you as glad
and gay as the birds; and you will be my darling, my life, my all, my
daughter!"

The deep feeling with which Dr. Carollyn spoke made his voice tremble
and stirred the heart of the young girl strangely. She raised her
wistful eyes to his; she pressed his hand to assure him of her
gratitude and affection--but what little light and color still remained
in her pale face faded out, leaving it as white and fixed as death.
First she glanced into the little log-cabin where Mrs. Wright was too
busy over the wash-tub to hear what had been said, then out in the
sunshine where the children were playing, and then her gaze wandered
to the pine-forests far away. Wreaths of blue smoke still curled from
the charred trunks of millions of trees and floated like a thin haze in
the west and south. The settlement had been excited for many days, by
melancholy reports of the loss of life occasioned by that disastrous
fire.

The charred remains of a company of four persons had been found in one
spot, whose names and history must forever remain unknown--strangers in
a strange land--so perishing as to leave no link by which to connect
them with their friends, whoever these might be. Wild rumors, setting
the loss of life from thirty to a hundred, as already known, floated
about, growing from day to day.

The fate of Nat Wolfe had made a profound impression, and still cast
a shadow upon the thoughts of his former friends. Buckskin Joe had
himself undertaken to communicate the tidings to the Wrights, feeling
more than any other person that the news would harrow one young heart
most cruelly. He had watched, with sagacious quiet, the progress of
affairs between the young people--had secretly chafed at the cold
repulsion of Dr. Carollyn's manner toward the haughty hunter who would
not make a single concession in advance--had thought he saw that
Elizabeth was the deepest sufferer by this state of things--and had
been making up his mind to tell Nat that he was a great fool not to
take the young girl, in despite of her father--when the events of the
last chapter so tragically cut short his plans for the two lovers.

"I'll be danged if I hadn't rather face the fire ag'in than to tell
her," said the guide to himself, feeling wretchedly, "but thar's no one
will break it so easy, mebbe--and I've got to out with it--that's all!"

He went straight to the log-cabin, in which the Wrights were
established, more through the energy of Dr. Carollyn than any exertion
of their own. The sunset streamed pleasantly into the little room,
whose entrance-way was unopposed by other door than a piece of
wagon-cover, which was let down at night.

Elizabeth was spreading a cloth on the grass outside, and Mrs. Wright
was coming out with a tin plate heaped with biscuits and another with
fried pork. Timothy was putting away his pipe, preparatory to supper.

"You're just in time, Joe," said the matron; "set by, and have
somethin' to eat. You haven't been to supper, I hope."

The maiden had colored rose-red when she saw him coming; in her
thoughts he was associated with Nat; she knew they had gone off on
some kind of an expedition together, and she half expected to see the
hunter in his wake. Joe saw the blush and groaned inwardly. Famished
as he was, for he had stopped for no refreshment except a glass of
whisky, he felt as if he could swallow nothing for the great lump that
came up in his tough old throat. But so absolutely faint was he from
exhaustion that he sunk down by the cloth, and stretching out his hand
for a biscuit, began to eat it before the others were helped, or before
he had made any answer to the hostess. Accustomed to the free-and-easy
manners of his class, Mrs. Wright pushed the plate near him with a
smile, called her husband and the children, and was pouring out the
black coffee into tin cups, before she addressed her guest further:

"How's our friend, Nat Wolfe? He went 'long with you, didn't he?"

Joe swallowed his cup of scalding coffee, got up, and went into the
cabin to light his pipe.

"I wish you'd eat your supper, Miss 'Lizabeth," he said, coming out and
looking at her moodily.

She raised her eyes to his with a bright smile, but when she met his
look, she startled, and grew anxious; the biscuit and bacon grew
distasteful to her--she sipped her coffee, but not as if she cared for
it.

"Did you have any luck, or wasn't you looking for a lead?" asked Mr.
Wright, as the guide smoked in silence.

"Had some awful bad luck," answered Joe, letting his pipe fall and
break to pieces. "We got caught in that fire, ye see. I got out of
the scrape by hard scratching," here he paused entirely and stared at
Elizabeth, who had set down her cup and was also staring at him.

"But what?" cried Mr. Wright. "My God! you don't mean to say that--that
Nat Wolfe is lost!"

"Look out for that girl," called Joe, to Mrs. Wright, who turned and
found Elizabeth fallen upon her face.

"I s'pose I've killed her, after all," muttered the guide, "it's my
luck with that gal. Yes, Wright, Wolfe's gone, no mistake. I don't
believe she's comin' to, right away; I guess I'll go for the Doctor."

"Yes, do--her father'll know just what to do. She's in a dead faint. It
come on her so sudden."

"I hain't got sense to break any thing softly," muttered the old
fellow, starting off in the direction of a cluster of tents, in one of
which he had seen Dr. Carollyn as he passed by it. When he returned
with that gentleman, the maiden was still unconscious; and it required
time and skill to revive her from the deathly stupor into which she had
been stricken.

Dr. Carollyn was shocked when he learned the cause of his daughter's
illness; he had admired the hunter's brave and chivalric character, and
felt grateful to him for the priceless service he had rendered in the
rescue of his child--while he could not make up his mind to receive
him as a son and a rival in the affections of that child. His awful
and tragic fate affected him deeply; while he was pained to see the
evidence of Elizabeth's interest in the lost one.

He hoped that a great part of the effect of the news upon her was owing
to the weakened, excited state of her nerves, her mind and body having
been overwrought by the occurrences of the past few weeks. That it was
more a shock to her nerves than a fatal blow to her heart, he allowed
himself to believe. He himself felt appalled by the sudden and terrible
nature of the catastrophe.

With the utmost gentleness and tenderness he won her back to
consciousness, and soothed and strengthened her through the two or
three days' prostration which followed. During these days he made up
his mind to wait no longer, before urging the necessary step of a
parting from her old friends, than until she should be strong enough to
undertake the return journey.

It was now a week since the news of the accident. Elizabeth was about
her little duties, pale and quiet; and her father was making all
needful preparations for a speedy departure. Having learned of a train
that was about to start eastward, he had taken this time to give her
warning of his intentions. Had such a dazzling change in her prospects
occurred a month ago, she would have welcomed it with all the delight
and eagerness of her age. When oppressed with the dreariness of that
long journey, tired of the homely fare, the rough company, if she had
been told that such a father as this--a man to whom she could cling
with all the fondness of her wild young heart--would come to her and
offer all those splendors after which she had vaguely pined, her fancy
would have reveled in happy enchantments--her dull life would have
opened into a magic land, out of that monotonous desert.

Now her eyes fixed themselves upon the blackened forest with a gaze
that could not be torn away; they seemed to say in that expression of
mute longing and despair, that it would be sweeter to her to go there
and throw herself, like the Hindoo widow, on that smoldering pyre, than
to take her father's hand and go with him where every thing that makes
life beautiful to the young awaited her. Such a depth of feeling in
the breast of one who had been but a child a little while ago, proved
that the character written in those mobile features and singularly
expressive eyes was one of no ordinary power. She was one that, loving
once, like her mother, would love so purely and deeply that to jar or
rudely to doubt or destroy, would be death; and with this fondness was
blended much of the passionate tenacity of her father's nature.

When Nat Wolfe, holding her, dying, in his arms, in the burning,
solitary desert, sealed her soul with the impress of his own, that
impress was eternal.

Finally, with a long, gasping sigh she withdrew her gaze, and trying to
smile, said in a low voice:

"You are right, father. It is well to go at once, since we must go. It
will not take much time to complete _my_ preparations;" and truly, the
gathering up of two calico frocks, and the precious box of mementoes
left by her mother, constituted the whole of Elizabeth's trouble in the
matter.

When Mrs. Wright heard the decision in favor of immediate departure,
she left off wringing her clothes, and took to wringing her hands and
crying in her demonstrative way.

"Don't, auntie, don't--it will make me more unhappy," said the maiden,
so pitifully, that she made a great effort to restrain herself.

Timothy Wright didn't weep or wring his hands, but he walked about in
a meaningless way, did every thing wrong that he tried to do, and made
himself as useless and forlorn as usual.

Grieved as the couple were to part with their adopted niece, they
never thought of opposing the step; they loved her too sincerely to
oppose their claims against the prospect of her being placed as they
had always felt she needed and deserved. Lizzie had been a rare and
misplaced exotic in their homely garden, and they had no wish to
withhold her from the warmth and light and beauty necessary to her.
They rejoiced heartily in her good fortune, trying to put their own
loss out of sight.

Feeling how much he was taking from them, Dr. Carollyn did not prepare
to leave them, without substantial tokens of his esteem and gratitude.
He told Mr. Wright that farming was his legitimate business, not
mining, and that there was a hundred-fold more gold to be found in
carrots and corn and potatoes, than in the quarter of the ravines. The
rich character of the land immediately at the foot of the mountain,
and the fabulous prices which fruits and vegetables would bring for
years to come, would insure a fortune to any farmer who would give his
attention to the cultivation of articles needed in the market. Getting
Wright's consent to the wisdom of the plan, he selected a suitable
farm, bought cattle and utensils to enable him to work it, gave him
money enough to live on for the winter, providing him fully with the
ways and means for doing well.

The hour of parting came swiftly--was over--and Elizabeth, sundered
from the past, completely, even in name--her father called her
Annie--set out to recross those desert plains to the unknown realms of
the great world which lay beyond--so near, so far away--so long dreamed
of, so utterly unknown.

Buckskin Joe insisted upon being one of the party across the plains;
he could not give up his oversight of the maiden whom he had taken in
such special charge since the first glimpse into her young face had won
him into her service; and when, after duly and safely seeing her as far
on her way as the first steamboat landing on the route, he bade her
farewell, tears stood in his eyes, as he gave her, with extra fervor,
his parting benediction:

"The Lord bless and preserve ye, and keep ye from the bite of a
rattlesnake!"




CHAPTER X.

AN UNEXPECTED DECLARATION.

 I know it--I feel it--he loves me at last!
 The heart-hidden anguish is over and past!
 Love brightens his dark eyes, and softens his tone;
 He loves me! he loves me--his soul is mine own!

 Mrs. Osgood.


In among curtains of amber silk, which made the sunlight more sunny
still, came the glow of an October afternoon. The rich atmosphere lay
slumberously over the books and pictures and luxurious furniture of Dr.
Carollyn's library. He was not in; but occupying his easy-chair, drawn
up near the pleasant window, reclined his daughter, motionless, with
half-shut eyes, lost in a soft reverie:

             "With her head at ease reclining,
             On the cushion's velvet lining,
 On the velvet, violet-lining, with the sunlight gloating o'er."

The little volume of blue and gold in which she had been reading had
fallen away from her hand, and lay half-hidden in the fragrant folds of
her dress; some strain of Tennyson's delicious music had thrilled her
heart with memories more than hopes, for the dreamy luster of her eyes
had a light more of tears than smiles. There was a light shadow on the
clear, smooth forehead, a slight compression of the beautiful mouth--as
if a word might startle that breathless dream into a shower of tears.

 "Dear as remembered kisses after death."

this was the line at which she had dropped the poem, and sunk away into
the past. The year just gone slipped out of her life and fell into the
sea of oblivion with a sparkle--this house, this home, this father,
these splendors, these pleasures slid away--she was not Annie Carollyn,
rich, lovely, and flattered--but Elizabeth Wright, a sun-burned,
forlorn, and starving girl, sinking down in a pitiless desert, with
only a pair of strong arms to link her to life--only a long, long kiss
of love and despair to hold her flitting soul until relief came. And
where were the arms and where the lips that held her then?

 "Dear as remembered kisses after death."

Ah, holy were the memories of that first, last kiss to the maiden--deep
down in the most secret chamber of her soul they lay, so sacredly
reserved, so sadly precious, that not even her quick-eyed father knew
how they were enshrined.

In October Dr. Carollyn had arrived in his native city with his
recovered treasure; and it was now the month of gold again. In that
year he had grown many years younger. He found profound happiness in
the possession of his lost child--peace after years of harrowing misery.

When that great calamity had befallen him in the days of his youth, he
had shut up the house in which the brief scenes of his married life
had been enacted, and had gone away from his practice and his friends,
spending most of his time in restless travel from land to land, coming
back occasionally to haunt the deserted house for a few weeks. As the
tide of fashion moved up town he was advised to sell his mansion; but
he would allow neither occupants, nor other changes than such as were
necessary to preserve it from premature decay. The old housekeeper, who
had been his mother's, and who welcomed his bride to her home, was left
in charge of the furniture as long as she lived. This ancient friend
had passed away, leaving every thing to darkness and silence, before
the return of the Doctor with his child.

Then came a change. The house was no longer upon a fashionable street,
but it was quiet and respectable, and he would have no other. In _this_
house he would begin life again. Sunshine was let into the long-closed
rooms--the moldering curtains and carpets were replaced--an air of
joy and luxury was given to the desolate mansion--only one room was
left untouched and unseen save by the hand and eye of the master. When
arrangements were complete, he took his daughter from the hotel where
they had stopped, and brought her _home_--to be its star and queen.

Uncultivated as she necessarily was from her manner of life, his
affection received very slight shock from his pride; for her beauty
was of that refined and indisputable type to which all people yield
obedience, and the grace of her beautiful nature gave a charm to her
manners which surpassed the polish of finishing schools. She glided
into her new estate as naturally as a swan into the water--she was only
in her element.

Dr. Carollyn did not think of sending her from him to study; masters
waited upon her at the house; pride and duty did not urge her to study
more than her mind craved enlightenment. The interest she took in her
books was a safeguard, had she needed any, against her becoming too
much engrossed by the flatteries and gayeties of society; but her mind
was of that noble order which could be affected by no such trivial
dangers. She enjoyed, as youth and beauty should enjoy, the pleasures
surrounding her; it was pleasant to be so loved and attended upon;
but she was in no manner spoiled by indulgence. A fear of her own
deficiencies gave a slight dash of humility to her otherwise rather
queenly address; she was sweet, and proud, and fair, and quiet, the
wonder and admiration of many. All this time, though not in the least
morbid or melancholy, she carried with her a constant regret--a sorrow
which shaded her too brilliant lot.

Dr. Carollyn guessed something of this; but since the source of this
sorrow was one which could never interfere with himself, and since
it made her so indifferent to the adulations of the young men of
their circle, since it did not seriously interfere with her health
and spirits, but only promised to keep her the more entirely his,
that selfish instinct of jealousy caused him to no longer regret its
existence.

A ray of sunshine creeping aslant the slumberous atmosphere, fixed
itself in the purple braids of the young girl's hair like a _golden
arrow_. But she knew not how the cunning hand of the sun was bewitching
her--she wist not how beautiful was the lustrous repose of her face,
and the silken gleam of her garments--her soul was far away. The faint
tinkle of a bell sounded through the quiet house, the outer door was
opened and closed; she did not hear any thing; she did not even stir
when the noiseless door of the library swung back and the quiet footman
entered with a card.

"Shall I tell him you are at home, Miss Carollyn?"

She started and glanced up, taking the card which he handed her with a
little surprise at his doubting air. His knowledge of the proprieties
did not extend to a recognition of the name upon the pasteboard--it
might be that of the Embassador of Spain--he did not know--the
gentleman who gave it looked passable, certainly. Mechanically, for she
had not shaken off the spell which the poem had wrought on her, she
read:

 "Golden Arrow."

Confused by the unknown name, the footman had failed to close the door
into the apartment which he entered, and the audacious stranger, in
the hall, had obeyed an irresistible impulse to approach the end of
the hall, and look after the fate of his card. He had a full view of
the maiden dreaming in the "violet-lined" chair; had noted the rich
clearness of her rounded cheek, the glossy smoothness of her hair, the
tremulous, sorrowful depression of the dark eyelashes and red lips; had
absorbed with an eager glance the grace of her drapery, the elegance of
her surroundings--and now, he watched her, startled from her reverie,
listlessly look at the card, turn red and pale, and throw a wild,
bewildered look toward the entrance where he stood.

"Let him come in," she said, rising to her feet.

The footman bowed, and retiring, sent the visitor in. As he came
forward, she stood, slightly leaning forward, pale as death, doubt,
fear and startled surprise in face and attitude, and a look of
bewilderment over all.

A moment the two stood looking full into each other's eyes; then the
stranger smiled, and she cried:

"Nat!"

A mutual impulse, such as thrills from breast to breast of man and
woman like an electric shock, moved them both. He held out his arms
appealingly, but not sooner than she sprung forward to be clasped in
them. They were alive, face to face, heart to heart--that was enough.

For a few moments this blissful truth was all they cared to realize.
Presently they stood apart, wondering at their own impulses, their
own joy. If Elizabeth--we _must_ call her Elizabeth to the end of the
chapter--had been beautiful before, she was radiant now. Her clear,
dark complexion and expressive features were made for just such light
and color as filled them now. Her lover gazed upon her in rapture, and
her own timid glance sought to repay his admiration in kind.

This was indeed Nat Wolfe, the hunter of the plain, towering in
frame, erect in carriage, dashing and chivalrous in manner--this his
frank smile and kindling eye; but the roughness of his wild life
was smoothed away. The gleaming rifle, frightful knife and hunter's
frock were exchanged for a civilized dress, at which the scrupulous
footman at the door could not have carped. Only one peculiarity of his
adventurous life was retained--he wore that long, bright hair of his
as loosely as ever. It streamed about his neck in a fashion unknown
to Broadway; but it accorded so well with his unusual hight and manly
bearing that it gave him the dignity of the famous men of old.

Suddenly Elizabeth said, with a return of the doubting air:

"Are you really alive, Nat?"

"I hope so," he answered, laughing, but very earnest, "since I am so
blessed. If you do not believe it, sit here, will you, by my side, and
let me tell you just how it is that I have come, a sound spirit in a
sound body, to inquire after the welfare of the little girl whom I
found once on the great prairie."

They sat side by side upon the sofa, hand clasped in hand.

"On that awful night in which I wakened in the heart of the forest to
find myself surrounded by a sea of fire, my first impulse was to alarm
my companion. I groped about in the suffocating smoke; but I am since
convinced, by comparing notes with Joe, that, confused and blinded as
I was, I worked in the wrong direction. I was probably the one who was
first awake, as he says he is certain he reached the spot where I ought
to have been before making efforts for his own escape. Failing in all
attempts to join him, and at times half insensible from the oppressive
smoke, I made a desperate effort to preserve strength and reason for
an escape from the frightful ocean of flame which roared and surged
around, above, everywhere, except down in the hell of heat and vapor
through which I crawled. The same idea which came to Buckskin Joe,
of attempting to reach the gorge, occurred to me; but I was now so
bewildered by the search for him, that I no longer was certain in which
direction it lay.

"I crept along on my hands and knees, feeling the heat each moment
more intolerable. I struggled for breath, until I finally sunk, and
lay helpless, my eyes upturned to that strange, fearful, yet gorgeous
vision of leaping and flickering fire in the tree-tops, surging in
the wind, against a black, starless sky. I yielded to the dangerous
enchantment of the light; a deadly languor and drowsiness crept over
me--at that perilous moment _you_ seemed to call me, dear Elizabeth,
and gave me superhuman energy. I struggled against death--against fate;
I would not yield--I would not die! Once more I crawled along; thank
God, a breath of air, cool, sweet, delicious, struck my face; the next
instant the bed of grass and pine-tassels beneath me gave way, and I
fell into darkness and insensibility.

"How long I remained unconscious I could never tell. When I recovered
a memory of my situation, I felt about me in the darkness, and was
convinced that I had dropped through the opening of a cave on to the
earth and rocks within. It might be that I was immured in some cavern
from which there was no outlet--that I had escaped death by fire to
find here a more lingering but not less certain destruction. No matter;
to have escaped from that terrible torment above me was enough for the
present. After I had fully recovered my presence of mind, I recollected
that I had a match-box in my pocket, well supplied; I lighted one of
the frail tapers, and by its brief flare had an instant view of a wide
and wonderful cave, stretching away into unfathomed darkness, and
glittering here and there with fanciful stalactites. It was a weird
place in which to be entombed.

"Groping at my feet I scraped together the dry leaves and sticks I had
brought down in my fall, and lighted them; before they burned entirely
out, I had gathered by the light they gave, quite an armful of fuel,
which, from time to time, had apparently fallen through from the
fissure above. With these I built a fire, in the hope that its flame
would enable me to detect some opening, by which I might trace a path
out of this perilous place. The flames arose brightly, throwing crimson
gleams athwart the gloom, revealing marvelous crystals flashing from
columns which seemed built of ice and marble, and shining against what
looked like cascades fixed in the very act of pouring from the hights
above.

"Anxious as I was, and bent only on finding an outlet, I could not
withhold a curious and admiring gaze from the splendid shapes half
revealed in the flickering light. The roof was fringed with glittering
crystals; but, though I saw the openings of many chambers, caverns
within caverns, stretching into darkness where I dared not venture, I
saw no gleam of the day which I knew must be shining over the blessed
world outside.

"When all the fuel I could gather was nearly exhausted, I made a
splendid discovery. I found a good pine-knot, which would burn for
an hour or two, and might light me either further into the hopeless
intricacies of a living tomb, or out into safety. I lighted this
welcome torch and immediately started upon an exploring expedition,
such as I had never before undertaken. I could only trust to fate at
the best. Out of all the passages inviting me there were many chances
that I should take the wrong one, when probably only one was right.
Eagerly I pushed forward along what appeared to be the main hall of
this majestic cave. For at least a half mile my path was clear; then I
heard the sound of running water, and presently came to a stream which
I thought completely blocked the narrowing way between lofty rocks; but
I ventured upon a rough and slippery path, and by much climbing, passed
the worst of it, and came out again to a wide, subterraneous chamber.

"Here I was astonished to observe traces of human labor and handicraft.
I came upon various tools, which seemed intended for mining purposes,
and were made of hardened copper. As they were not like those in use
by our own miners, I was forced to the conclusion that I had stumbled
upon some of the relics of the ancient people of this continent. I
looked about curiously, and by the glare of my torch fell upon a heap
of ore, piled up on a dry rock in the corner of the chamber--a heap
of glittering ore, washed from the soil and gravel, and ready for
the crucible. I examined it--it was gold! gold in crumbly dust, in
irregular lumps, in broken quartz, enough of it gathered and heaped in
that long-neglected pile to make me, dear Elizabeth, a much richer man
than I had ever aspired to be.

"For a few moments my breath came hard; I was excited, as men are
at the sight of countless wealth. But my torch began to flicker and
wane. Gold was not bread, nor water, nor sunlight--it was not life--I
was fighting for life. I pressed on; but in less than half an hour my
pine-knot was consumed.

"Exhausted, I sat down a few moments to rest, and to nibble the dry
biscuit which chanced to be in my pocket. This little refreshment gave
me new energy. I groped along, following the stream--I had a strong
hope that that noisy babbler would lead me out of this cavern sometime,
provided I did not drown myself or break my neck before that happy time
should arrive.

"I was not wrong in my conjecture. After suffering mental and bodily
torture which I will not distress you by speaking of, suffice it that
I emerged, the second day of my entombment, into the light of the sun
once more.

"I found myself in one of the wildest gorges of the Rocky Mountains.
How I supped that night on a prickly pear--how I killed a wild animal
the next day with my hunting knife, and lived on its flesh during
the rest of my adventures--how I took care to mark the devious and
intricate path, by which, after nearly a week of travel, I found myself
upon familiar ground again--how I finally worked my way to Pike's
Peak--of all this I will some day give you the particulars.

"I will only say now how stricken I felt when I heard of the departure
of my little girl, only two days previously, and that I was too proud
to follow when her father had kept me at such distance. I will only
say, sweetest, how my heart burned when good Mrs. Wright told me of the
blow it had been to you when you thought me lost. I believed that you
loved me, and I blessed you in my inmost soul. I resolved to go some
time and ask you if it were not so. But not just then. I would go in
such guise that your haughty father should not discard me--at least
with good reason.

"I returned upon my tiresome journey back to that wonderful cavern,
but this time I went well armed, provisioned and escorted, with a few
chosen men to share the dangers and the spoils. I led my little band
to the exact locality, and, by following the subterraneous stream as I
had done at my exit, I made my way to those old chambers where unknown
miners of an extinct race had toiled centuries ago, laying up riches to
help me in my little plot for happiness.

"We brought away the accumulated gold which by some purpose or accident
had been left concealed in the cavern; I had the lion's share, but
there was enough for all. Your good uncle, Mr. Wright, was one of the
fortunate ones.

"I left Pike's Peak several months ago. I met Buckskin Joe on the
plains. He wished me good-luck, told me to 'fear for the best,' and
sent you, as a token of his everlasting friendship, this golden arrow,
which he had manufactured from a lump of the precious metal which he
took from that ravine. May I put it in your hair, dear Lizzie?

"I have been a long time at my father's home in this State--a home
which I deserted years ago, driven forth into the wilds of the West
by a silly and heartless girl that I have seen, this summer, fat,
frowsy, and commonplace, boxing her children's ears. My dear mother
was dead. But my father was alive and still preaching to a loving and
devoted congregation. You wouldn't have guessed I was a minister's son,
would you, little one? And a minister's son is almost as respectable
as a doctor's daughter--particularly when he is worth half a million.
Besides, I have shorn my shaggy coat. I'm not quite such a bear as I
used to be. Do you think I am?"

She smiled as he bent his handsome face to look into her eyes; then her
head drooped, until her face was hidden in his arm.

"I should have loved you as much, had you been just the same," she
said. "But why did you stay away so long?--so near, and never to let me
know?"

"Was it wrong, Lizzie? Perhaps it was, but I wanted to give you a
chance to make a different choice if your taste inclined. When you
knew me, you did not know the world. I would not take advantage of
your ignorance. I came to this house with fear and trembling, but your
sweet eyes told me the truth the moment I looked in them. Those eyes
of yours! Well, my little girl, I don't know as they are any more
beautiful than they were the first time they looked at me from under
that faded sun-bonnet. They took Golden Arrow captive at the first
glance."

Her head lay upon his breast.

"Those were strange days," she murmured.

And a sweet silence fell upon both. Up in the horizon of memory crept
the herds of bison, whistled the midnight hurricane, rode the shy bands
of stealthy savages, crept the long day of solitude and starvation, in
which their love first spoke from mute eyes and clinging lips.

Dr. Carollyn admitted himself to the house with his night-key and
stepped lightly into the library, with a kiss on his mouth ready for
his daughter. He paused, as the _tableau vivant_ of the happy lovers
met his gaze; the smile suddenly died out and an awful frown gathered
in its stead.

"Annie!"

She started at the cold, crisp word; for an instant she shrunk, then
springing up, still clinging to her lover's hand, she said, softly, but
with a firmness borrowed from her father's blood:

"This is Nat Wolfe, dear father. He has come back to life and me. You
must take both or neither of us!"

"_Must!_"--humph! it had come to that, had it? That was too bitter a
pill for Dr. Carollyn to swallow, albeit it was a favorite prescription
of his.

A moment his dark eyes blazed at the young couple standing before him,
neither of whose faces flashed less resolute than his own; then turning
abruptly upon his heel, without the courtesy of a word to the unwelcome
visitor, he retreated to his chamber, and Elizabeth saw no more of him
that evening.

Plainly the evil spirit had not been so finally driven out of him as he
had hoped. That night he wrestled with it again, in the solitude of his
room, knowing well that while he struggled, the child, dearer to him
than his own life, must be wetting her pillow with tears which himself
alone was causing to flow.




CHAPTER XI.

THE BIRTHDAY AND THE LETTER.

   I took the scroll; I could not brook
   An eye to gaze on it save mine.

        *       *       *       *       *

 But oh, to-night, those words of thine
   Have brought the past before me;
 The shadows of long-vanished years
   Are passing sadly o'er me.--Miss Landon.


Dr. Carollyn arose late the next morning; a night of unrest had hardly
decided him to obey his better nature. With the breakfast which
he ordered in his chamber came two or three packages left at the
door that morning from the princely establishments of merchants and
jewelers which he had visited the previous day. They were presents
for Elizabeth. This very day was her eighteenth birthday; and these
were some of the costly gifts he had pleased himself selecting for his
daughter.

The blue silk dress--her mother's favorite color--of a new and lovely
shade, rich and lustrous; the coronal and necklace of pearls, the
cashmere shawl, the dainty perfumes in bottles filagreed with gold--he
set the packages before him on the table, not offering to untie them,
staring at them coldly, as he trifled with his coffee and toast.

Unreasonable as the black jealousy which had once blotted the sunshine
out of that house was the anger with which he thought of the man who
had yesterday intruded himself into his new-made Paradise. "Was he
never to have any peace?"

We are afraid peace is not purchased with such a temper as yours, Dr.
Carollyn.

In the mean time Elizabeth had gone down to the solitary breakfast
room, tremulous with love and tears, meaning to throw herself upon
her father's breast and speak for Nat the words he was too proud to
urge for himself. When she found herself alone at the meal, of course
appetite and courage failed; she went to her chamber, and gazed out at
the golden sunshine as if it had been a great gray cloud drifting up
and obscuring her birthday--her birthday! yes, she was eighteen, and
she remembered with a thrill the faded yellow envelope lying carefully
locked amid her most precious treasures, which had held for so many
years the letter of her dead mother awaiting this very day.

With a reverend touch she now drew forth this missive, and with
careful, trembling fingers broke the seal; a mist swam before her eyes
as she first gazed at this delicate, indistinct chirography, but it
cleared away with the kiss she pressed upon the paper.

Between herself and her father there had never been any explicit
understanding as to the melancholy causes of the separation of the
parents; the subject was one so painful that it had been avoided, with
the confession of Dr. Carollyn that all the fault had been his, and
that sometime her child should know all that he could tell her of the
life and character of her adored, her angelic mother.

A desire to understand the mystery mingled with the reverent affection
with which the young girl began the perusal of the letter:

"My own dear Child--my Daughter:--I tremble while I write the word
daughter, for I feel how much sadder, more deadly perilous it will be
for my poor orphan, that she is born to the heritage of woman. Before
you came to me I prayed that you might be a boy, and if I regret that
my prayer was not answered, you will know that my love and solicitude
are in proportion to my regret.

"When you read this, if you ever do, you will have come to woman's
estate; now, while I write, you sport in the grass and flowers at my
feet, scarcely able to balance yourself on the unequal ground, your
bright hair blowing about your face in little rings, your eyes trying
to catch mine, full of laughter and love, so innocent, so gay--yet, oh
God, so like his own--yes, darling, they are his eyes which look at me
constantly through my baby's. I stop, to catch you to my heart, to hold
you there till you cry with the cruel fondness, and I set you down, and
push you softly away--for I would not hurt you even with my love! ah,
no! it is so dreadful to love only to be killed by love. It is strange
that I love him yet, seeing that he has wronged me in such a manner
that I can never go back to him, never have any more happiness or
faith; but I do--I do, and the very perfectness with which I loved him
makes the impossibility of my ever going back to him again, who gave me
my death-blow so pitilessly.

"Yesterday I chanced upon some lines--written by a woman. I know they
were--which told my story partly--all but the love--the despair--for
it was the hand dearest to me in the world which sent the arrow, and
_that_ is what murdered me.

 "A whisper woke the air,
   A soft, light tone, and low,
   Yet barbed with shame and woe.
 Ah! might it only perish there,
 Nor further go!

        *       *       *       *       *

 "It was the only _heart_ it found--
 The only heart 'twas meant to find,
   When first its accents woke.
 It reached the gentle heart at last,
   And that--it broke!

 "Low as it seemed to other ears,
 It came a thunder crash to hers--
 That fragile girl so fair and gay.
 'Tis said a lovely humming-bird,
 That dreaming in a lily lay,
 Was killed but by the gun's _report_
 Some idle boy had fired in sport;
 So exquisitely frail its frame
 The very _sound_ a death blow came:
 And thus her heart, unused to shame--
   Shrined in its lily too--
 Her light and happy heart, that beat
 With love and hope so fast and sweet,
 When first that cruel word it heard,
 It fluttered like a frightened bird--
 Then shut its wings and sighed,
 And with a silent shudder, died!"

"I was not so happy as that poor girl to die so quickly, but the wound
was none the less fatal that it was the more lingering. I thought I
could not, would not live--and perhaps it was you, growing in my life
and soul, whose expected coming held me back. But I am going now and
soon. _Now_ I wish that I were to live. I would be willing to endure
years of worse sorrow, for the privilege of shielding my poor little
baby flower from the world's harshness. But the desire comes too late.
I must leave you, leave my little helpless orphan girl to the mercy of
every wind that blows.

"My darling, you will surely think your mother mad or foolish. I began
this letter because I could not go away from earth without leaving you
some token of the unspeakable tenderness I feel--some message from
_your mother_. And I have only been talking of myself and of griefs
with which I should not have saddened your girlish heart.

"It has been a question which I have debated long and anxiously,
whether I ought to send you to him upon whom you have a child's
claim--whether I have any right to keep you from the name and fortune
and the paternal care to which you are entitled. God forgive me if I
have chosen wrong--if that which I have suffered has so clouded my
vision that it seems better to me that you should take the risk of
happiness in this humble, secluded home, rather than in that brilliant
sphere which has proved not so bright as it is cold and pitiless.

"_Here_ my soul has never been wounded; _here_ suspicion, distrust,
has never been manifest--only the kindness and affection of honest,
unsophisticated hearts. Am I wrong, then, in leaving you to such
guardianship, sure to be true and unpretending, even though I wrong you
out of a more splendid heritage--out of worldly wealth and fictitious
tenderness? It seems to me, who have been hurled so suddenly from my
pinnacle of bliss, as if the lowest rest were the safest. And who
knows?--it might even be if I sent to him the child of _our love_
that he might deny you, my innocent little angel babe, the claim upon
him which you have? Would it be more cruel than the wrong he visited
upon his wife? No! I will not trust you to him--to your own father,
Elizabeth!--though I love him still as completely as the day he led me
to our wedding rites.

"But if fate should throw you into his care--if he should seek you
and find you and seize upon you as _his_, absorb you into himself,
fatally, as he has me, I will pray to the Heavenly Father, in whose
presence I shall be dwelling, that he may never darken your life as he
has mine--that he will cherish you, not for his own, but _your_ sake,
love you, as your mother loves, self-forgetting, for your happiness and
not his own glory. I will pray that that iron will of his, to which I
delighted to yield, which I felt only as a band of flowers, because I
loved him so, may never tighten about your heart, as it did about mine.
I will pray and trust--God will be good to my little orphan girl. I
leave you to _Him_, rather than to any earthly father.

"And now, I have said nothing, can say nothing. Only that I love my
child--that I go away from her with a pang which only dying mothers
feel--that I will, if it is permitted me, still watch over her from the
blue hights of heaven--that I expect to meet her, some happy future
day, in the pure eternal city.

"The little mementoes which I shall be able to leave you will be dear
to you because they have been dear to your mother. Among them is my
wedding-ring. Keep it for your bridal. Good-by, my daughter--it is so
hard to say good-by.

"If it should prove, by the time you read these words, that you have
found your father, I need not tell you to love him, for none can help
that; you will be a good daughter; but, if he stands between you and
happiness, plead with him, for _my sake_, to deal gently with my child.
And so, again, good-by. God bless and keep you, my darling. Good-by.
You will come to me sometime, after you have done with this brief
world. Till then, God will be with my child.

 "Your mother,

 "Annie St. John Carollyn."

Elizabeth's tears were dropping upon the faded letter--that wayward,
fond, not overly-wise letter which had evidently torn itself out of
the mother's heart, whether she would or not, and written itself
down, without thought of wisdom or plan. And yet, as by some strange,
prophetic foreboding, had she not pictured forth the future precisely
as it now stood?

Again and again she read the passage:

"If he should seek you and find you and seize upon you as _his_, absorb
you fatally into himself, as he has me, I will pray to the Heavenly
Father," etc.; and as she brooded over it, her tears ceased to fall, a
light came into her face, and she whispered, looking up:

"My dear mother is praying for me now; she is watching over me,
softening my father's pride, blessing _our_ love--yes! she approves my
love for Nat--_she_ will plead our cause. I will not go proudly away
from my father, as I intended, when he so insulted my lover last night.
I will take him my mother's letter, and that shall be our peacemaker."

With the letter in her hand she went to her father's door; but her
knock remained unanswered. She had not heard him leave the house, and
stood irresolute, half-minded to intrude, without being bidden, into
his presence. While she hesitated, the door of the room adjoining was
partially unclosed. She looked up in surprise, for it was the chamber
forever closed, into which she had not been permitted to look since
she entered the house--the chamber where only the master went, alone,
at night, to surround himself with ghosts of the past--her mother's
bridal-chamber.

"Come in here, Annie!"

She hardly knew her father's voice, oppressed with emotions which his
pride endeavored to subdue; but she caught a glimpse of his face,
troubled, and wet with tears, and she sprung forward, forgetful in an
instant of her own wishes, flinging her arms about his neck. Softly
he closed the door, and the two were in the apartment, haunted by the
long-vanished presence of one, the young, the beautiful, the happy--the
dead wife and mother--the tragic close of whose brief dream of bliss
had overshadowed the luxury and beauty of this spot with a darkness
which could be lifted in this world--"nevermore!"

Timidly Elizabeth looked around, moved by a curiosity that was all
reverence and love. The blinds of one window were flung open and the
sunshine burst through, melting into the amber drapery of the heavy
silk curtains like topazes into gold. Save that the furniture was kept
scrupulously free from dust, proving the frequency of her father's
visits, scarcely an article seemed to have been moved from its place
in all those years. Curtains of amber silk corresponding with those of
the windows draped the bed, faded by time, but otherwise unchanged. The
party-dress which the bride had worn that fatal evening, lay across
the pillows where she had thrown it when she exchanged it for the
traveling suit in which she made her escape. The little satin slippers
of the same color as the dress, stood side by side on the carpet near
by. The sight of these touched the young girl beyond all else; she
sprung to them, took them up, kissed and pressed them to her bosom, all
unreflecting of the pang the impulsive action inflicted on another,
until a sound like that of a strangled sob, caused her to replace
them, and return to Dr. Carollyn, who had sunk into the chair nearest
him--her favorite chair, a dainty, cushioned thing of amber satin
brocade, well fitted for a lady's chamber.

"Dear father," she said, holding his hand, and looking into his eyes
with a love which ought to have satisfied him.

"Yet you wish to throw me away--you love another better than me," were
the words he said.

He had not meant to say them; he had come into that room for the
purpose of obtaining complete mastery over the tyrannous part of
himself, and he thought had conquered it forever; and he had no more
than said them, before he was ashamed, adding quickly:

"I do not blame you for it, little one. I shall not oppose you--only
I have had you such a brief time to myself. Is it strange I was
disconcerted to find myself put away so soon?"

"Not put away, dear father--not loved any less, but rather more than
ever. Oh, father, I know you will not condemn a happiness which you
once knew so sweet. Do you know I am eighteen to-day? I have been
reading my mother's letter; here it is--read it, too, will you not?"

She thrust it into his trembling hand; she dared not look at him, but
went and sat at the window while he read.

The silence was long and oppressive; at length she ventured to turn
to her father, and saw him sitting motionless, with bowed head, great
tears rolling silently down his face and dropping upon the paper
clutched in his hand. She stole to his feet, knelt, and clasped her
hands over his knee, looking up at him with a glance full of sympathy
and confidence--she trusted to the power of the mother up in heaven who
had said that she should watch over her at this crisis.

"She knew me better than I knew myself," muttered the proud man; "I do
not wonder that she wanted to hide you away from my selfishness, Annie."

"Yet she loved you so, through it all," murmured the young girl.

"She did. The letter is like herself--her goodness is more than I can
bear. But it is not too late for me to prove myself worthy of that love
yet. No, my child, I will not wring the life out of your warm young
heart with this steely will of mine. Where is this lover of yours? Send
for him. Be he bear or buffalo, wild Indian or adventurer, he shall be
my son. You shall share with him all that I have to give."

"He is neither bear nor buffalo," cried Elizabeth, smiling through her
tears. "If you will only take a good look at him, papa, you will see
what he is--you will not be ashamed of him."

"Pshaw!" muttered Dr. Carollyn, rising, and shaking himself. "But where
did you say he could be sent for, little one?"

"At the Metropolitan, I am quite sure he said."

"No doubt of it, then. Come, I will send Pomp with an invitation, in my
own name, for him to dine with us this evening. Come into my room, and
while I am writing the note you can be examining these parcels, which
seem to be directed to you."

They passed out into his bedchamber, and while he quietly indited
quite a lengthy note, for an invitation to dinner, Elizabeth untied
the precious packages one by one. It was not the beauty and splendor
of these birthday presents, however delightful these were, which gave
that rich bloom to her cheek, that lustrous gladness to her eyes. One
stolen glance at her radiant countenance half repaid her father for the
sacrifice he was making.

That was a memorable evening in the household calendar. When the
three sat down to the repast--which, in honor both of the birthday
and the betrothal, was served with the most sumptuous appointments of
which the establishment was capable--the haughty physician, divesting
himself of the ugly green spectacles of jealousy, looked at his guest
with fair, appreciative eyes. He was forced to admit that this great,
overgrown, self-willed son of his was no unfit match for his daughter;
in fact, that he was really a magnificent man, with brain and talent
enough for half a dozen; and, what he liked better than all else, with
self-respect enough to know and maintain his rights.

"No danger of my hurting him with my iron will," smiled Dr. Carollyn to
his own thought, as he measured the strength of his whilom antagonist,
but now friend and son.

And he liked the idea--for proud people respect pride in others; and,
since Annie would fall in love and be married, he could not remember
any young man in the whole circle of his acquaintance, who, all things
considered, was so satisfactory.

So he made himself very agreeable at that little dinner; and after it
was over, and they had talked together awhile in the library, he made
an excuse to withdraw to his own room, leaving the young girl showing
her gifts to her lover, and the two were alone with their happy hopes.

Youth and beauty, and love and peace--let us leave them upon the
threshold of the promised future. We can see the light which shines out
of the opening door; the twain step over and disappear in the enchanted
atmosphere within.


THE END.




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