way toward the colonel’s cabin Jim and Nell found themselves side by side. They had not exchanged a word since the evening previous, when Jim had kissed her. Unable to look at each other now, and finding speech difficult, they walked in embarrassed silence.
“Doesn’t Joe look splendid in his hunting suit?” asked Jim, presently.
“I hadn’t noticed. Yes; he looks well,” replied Nell, carelessly. She was too indifferent to be natural.
“Are you angry with him?”
“Certainly not.”
Jim was always simple and frank in his relations with women. He had none of his brother’s fluency of speech, with neither confidence, boldness nor understanding of the intricate mazes of a woman’s moods.
“But—you are angry with—me?” he whispered.
Nell flushed to her temples, yet she did not raise her eyes nor reply.
“It was a terrible thing for me to do,” went on Jim, hesitatingly. “I don’t know why I took advantage—of—of your mistaking me for Joe. If you only hadn’t held up your mouth. No—I don’t mean that—of course you didn’t. But—well, I couldn’t help it. I’m guilty. I have thought of little else. Some wonderful feeling has possessed me ever since—since—”
“What has Joe been saying about me?” demanded Nell, her eyes burning like opals.
“Why, hardly anything,” answered Jim, haltingly. “I took him to task about—about what I considered might be wrong to you. Joe has never been very careful of young ladies’ feelings, and I thought—well, it was none of my business. He said he honestly cared for you, that you had taught him how unworthy he was of a good woman. But he’s wrong there. Joe is wild and reckless, yet his heart is a well of gold. He is a diamond in the rough. Just now he is possessed by wild notions of hunting Indians and roaming through the forests; but he’ll come round all right. I wish I could tell you how much he has done for me, how much I love him, how I know him! He can be made worthy of any woman. He will outgrow this fiery, daring spirit, and then—won’t you help him?”
“I will, if he will let me,” softly whispered Nell, irresistibly drawn by the strong, earnest love thrilling in his voice.
SPIRIT OF THE BORDER [Part 2]
CHAPTER X.
Once more out under the blue-black vault of heaven, with its myriads of twinkling stars, the voyagers resumed their westward journey. Whispered farewells of new but sincere friends lingered in their ears. Now the great looming bulk of the fort above them faded into the obscure darkness, leaving a feeling as if a protector had gone—perhaps forever. Admonished to absolute silence by the stern guides, who seemed indeed to have embarked upon a dark and deadly mission, the voyagers lay back in the canoes and thought and listened. The water eddied with soft gurgles in the wake of the racing canoes; but that musical sound was all they heard. The paddles might have been shadows, for all the splash they made; they cut the water swiftly and noiselessly. Onward the frail barks glided into black space, side by side, close under the overhanging willows. Long moments passed into long hours, as the guides paddled tirelessly as if their sinews were cords of steel.
With gray dawn came the careful landing of the canoes, a cold breakfast eaten under cover of a willow thicket, and the beginning of a long day while they were lying hidden from the keen eyes of Indian scouts, waiting for the friendly mantle of night.
The hours dragged until once more the canoes were launched, this time not on the broad Ohio, but on a stream that mirrored no shining stars as it flowed still and somber under the dense foliage.
The voyagers spoke not, nor whispered, nor scarcely moved, so menacing had become the slow, listening caution of Wetzel and Zane. Snapping of twigs somewhere in the inscrutable darkness delayed them for long moments. Any movement the air might resound with the horrible Indian war-whoop. Every second was heavy with fear. How marvelous that these scouts, penetrating the wilderness of gloom, glided on surely, silently, safely! Instinct, or the eyes of the lynx, guide their course. But another dark night wore on to the tardy dawn, and each of its fearful hours numbered miles past and gone.
The sun was rising in ruddy glory when Wetzel ran his canoe into the bank just ahead of a sharp bend in the stream.
“Do we get out here?” asked Jim, seeing Jonathan turn his canoe toward Wetzel’s.
“The village lies yonder, around the bend,” answered the guide. “Wetzel cannot go there, so I’ll take you all in my canoe.”
“There’s no room; I’ll wait,” replied Joe, quietly. Jim noted his look—a strange, steady glance it was—and then saw him fix his eyes upon Nell, watching her until the canoe passed around the green-bordered bend in the stream.
Unmistakable signs of an Indian town were now evident. Dozens of graceful birchen canoes lay upon the well-cleared banks; a log bridge spanned the stream; above the slight ridge of rising ground could be seen the poles of Indian teepees.
As the canoe grated upon the sandy beach a little Indian boy, who was playing in the shallow water, raised his head and smiled.
“That’s an Indian boy,” whispered Kate.
“The dear little fellow!” exclaimed Nell.
The boy came running up to them, when they were landed, with pleasure and confidence shining in his dusky eyes. Save for tiny buckskin breeches, he was naked, and his shiny skin gleamed gold-bronze in the sunlight. He was a singularly handsome child.
“Me—Benny,” he lisped in English, holding up his little hand to Nell.
The action was as loving and trusting as any that could have been manifested by a white child. Jonathan Zane stared with a curious light in his dark eyes; Mr. Wells and Jim looked as though they doubted the evidence of their own sight. Here, even in an Indian boy, was incontestable proof that the savage nature could be tamed and civilized.
With a tender exclamation Nell bent over the child and kissed him.
Jonathan Zane swung his canoe upstream for the purpose of bringing Joe. The trim little bark slipped out of sight round the bend. Presently its gray, curved nose peeped from behind the willows; then the canoe swept into view again. There was only one person in it, and that the guide.
“Where is my brother?” asked Jim, in amazement.
“Gone,” answered Zane, quietly.
“Gone! What do you mean? Gone? Perhaps you have missed the spot where you left him.”
“They’re both gone.”
Nell and Jim gazed at each other with slowly whitening faces.
“Come, I’ll take you up to the village,” said Zane, getting out of his canoe. All noticed that he was careful to take his weapons with him.
“Can’t you tell us what it means—this disappearance?” asked Jim, his voice low and anxious.
“They’re gone, canoe and all. I knew Wetzel was going, but I didn’t calkilate on the lad. Mebbe he followed Wetzel, mebbe he didn’t,” answered the taciturn guide, and he spoke no more.
In his keen expectation and
