was.
Never had he looked upon a face so beautiful, never had he seen any one so lovely as this strange young woman who shared with him the hospitality of the humble board. He had gazed for a moment full into her deep, violet eyes,—eyes in which there was no smile but rather a cool intentness not far removed from unfriendliness,—and in that moment he forgot himself, his manners and his composure.
The soft light fell upon warm, smooth cheeks; a broad, white brow; red, sensitive lips and a perfect mouth; a round firm chin; a delicate nose,—and the faint shadows of imperishable dimples that even her unsmiling expression failed to disturb.
Not even in his dreams had he conjured up a face so bewilderingly beautiful.
Her hair, which was puffed and waved over her ears, took on the shade of brown spun silk on which the light played in changing tones of bronze. It was worn high on her head, banded a la grecque, with a small knot on the crown from which depended a number of ringlets ornamented with bowknots. Her ears were completely hidden by the soft mass that came down over them in shapely knobs. She wore no earrings,—for which he was acutely grateful, although they were the fashion of the day and cumbersomely hideous,—and her shapely throat was barren of ornament. He judged her to be not more than twenty-two or -three. A second furtive glance caught her looking down at her plate. He marvelled at the long, dark eyelashes.
Who was she? What was she doing here in the humble cot of the Strikers? Certainly she was out of place here. She was a tender, radiant flower set down amongst gross, unlovely weeds. That she was a person of consequence, to whom the Strikers paid a rude sort of deference, softened by the familiarity of long association but in no way suggestive of relationship, he was in no manner of doubt.
He was not slow to remark their failure to present him to her. The omission may have been due to ignorance or uncertainty on their part, but that was not the construction he put upon it. Striker was the free-and-easy type who would have made these strangers known to each other in some bluff, awkward manner,—probably by their Christian names; he would never have overlooked this little formality, no matter how clumsily he may have gone about performing it. It was perfectly plain to Gwynne that it was not an oversight. It was deliberate.
His slight feeling of embarrassment, and perhaps annoyance, evidently was not shared by the young lady; so far as she was concerned the situation was by no means strained. She was as calm and serene and impervious as a princess royal.
She joined in the conversation, addressed herself to him without constraint, smiled amiably (and adorably) upon the busy Eliza and her jovial spouse, and even laughed aloud over the latter's account of Zachariah and the silver-top boots. Gwynne remarked that it was a soft, musical laugh, singularly free from the shrill, boisterous qualities so characteristic of the backwoods-woman. She possessed the poise of refinement. He had seen her counterpart,—barring her radiant beauty,—many a time during his years in the cultured east: in Richmond, in Philadelphia, and in New York, where he had attended college.
He was subtly aware of the lively but carefully guarded interest she was taking in him. He felt rather than knew that she was studying him closely, if furtively, when his face was turned toward the talkative host. Twice he caught her in the act of averting her gaze when he suddenly glanced in her direction, and once he surprised her in a very intense scrutiny,—which, he was gratified to observe, gave way to a swift flush of confusion and the hasty lowering of her eyes. No doubt, he surmised with some satisfaction, she was as vastly puzzled as himself, for he must have appeared equally out-of-place in these surroundings. His thoughts went delightedly to the old, well-beloved story of Cinderella. Was this a Cinderella in the flesh,—and in the morning would he find her in rags and tatters, slaving in the kitchen?
He noticed her hands. They were long and slim and, while browned by exposure to wind and sun, bore no evidence of the grinding toil to which the women and girls of the frontier were subjected. And they were strong, competent hands, at that.
The food was coarse, substantial, plentiful. (Even Zachariah could see that it was plentiful.) Solid food for sturdy people. There were potatoes fried in grease, wide strips of side meat, apple butter, corn-cakes piping hot, boiled turnips, coffee and dried apple pie. The smoky odor of frying grease arose from the skillets and, with the grateful smell of coffee, permeated the tight little kitchen. It was a savoury that consoled rather than offended the appetite of these hardy eaters.
Striker ate largely with his knife, and smacked his lips resoundingly; swigged coffee from his saucer through an overlapping moustache and afterwards hissingly strained the aforesaid obstruction with his nether lip; talked and laughed with his mouth full,—but all with such magnificent zest that his guests overlooked the shocking exhibition. Indeed, the girl seemed quite accustomed to Mr. Striker's table-habits, a circumstance which created in Kenneth's questing mind the conviction that she was not new to these parts, despite the garments and airs of the fastidious East.
They were vastly interested in the account of his journey through the wilderness.
"Nowadays," said Striker, "most people come up the river, 'cept them as hail from Ohio. You must ha' come by way of Wayne an' Madison Counties."
"I did," said his guest. "We found it fairly comfortable travelling through Wayne County. The roads are decent enough and the settlers are numerous. It was after we left Madison County that we encountered hardships. We travelled for a while with a party of emigrants who were heading for the settlement at Strawtown. There were three families of them, including a dozen children. Our progress was slow, as they travelled by wagon. Rumours that the Indians were threatening to go on the warpath caused me to stay close by this slow-moving caravan for many miles, not only for my own safety but for the help I might be able to render them in case of an attack. At Strawtown we learned that the Indians were peaceable and that there was no truth in the stories. So Zachariah and I crossed the White River at that point and struck off alone. We followed the wilderness road,—the old Indian trace, you know,—and we travelled nearly thirty miles without seeing a house. At Brown's Wonder we met a party of men who had been out in this country looking things over. They were so full of enthusiasm about the prairies around here,—the Wea, the Wild Cat and Shawnee prairies,—that I was quite thrilled over the prospect ahead, and no longer regretted the journey which had been so full of privations and hardships and which I had been so loath to undertake in the beginning. Have you been at Thorntown recently?"
"Nope. Not sence I came through there some years ago. It was purty well deserted in those days. Nothin' there but Injin wigwams an' they was mostly run to seed. At that time, Crawfordsville was the only town to speak of between Terry Hut an' Fort Wayne, 'way up above here."
"Well, there are signs of a white settlement there now. Some of the old French settlers are still there and other whites are coming in. I had heard a great deal about the big Indian village at Thorntown, and was vastly disappointed in what I found. I am quite romantic, Miss—ahem!—quite romantic by nature, having read and listened to tales of thrilling adventures among the redskins, as we call them down my way, until I could scarce contain myself. I have always longed for the chance to rescue a beautiful white captive from the clutches of the cruel redskins. My valour—"
"And I suppose you always dreamed of marrying her as they always do in stories?" said she, smiling.
"Invariably," said he. "Alas, if I had rescued all the fair maidens my dreams have placed in jeopardy, I should by this time have as many wives as Solomon. Only, I must say in defence of my ambitions, I should not have had as great a variety. Strange as it may seem, I remained through all my adventures singularly constant to a certain idealistic captive. She looked, I may say, precisely alike in each and every case. Poor old Solomon could not say as much for his thousand wives. Mine, if I had them, would be so much alike in face and form that I could not tell one from the other,—and, now that I am older
