"But I am a pioneer," and he saw the rising storm in her eyes, "the daughter of pioneers. You taught me to be proud of it, Uncle Silas; you loved to remind me my mother was born on the Columbia, and that her father, a New England missionary, followed Marcus Whitman to Oregon. You never let me forget that my other grandfather was among the first to enter the Straits of Fuca, and sailed his own ship a hundred miles, straight up Puget Sound, without chart or pilot. You called it a great record. And my father was the pioneer surveyor. You talked about those seasons you spent in camp with him, while he blazed the great military road through the forest, running his section lines over rocky spurs and through cedar swamps, until I should count it a triumph to have carried chain for him. You see it was born in me, Uncle Silas. I can't help it—and I've got to turn it to the best account. It was my only inheritance."
Her voice broke at the last, and the assurance dropped from her like a shell. She stood before him, lovely, irresistible, extenuating a weakness.
"Oh," he said in evident distress, "you have misunderstood me. I wouldn't have you any different. Surely you know it? To me you are the embodiment of all that is fine and sweet and best in this great Northwest that I love. You are the spirit of it all. And your people were above criticism, Alice. Only, the memory of their fortitude makes me tremble for you. Your father, that splendid young fellow with almost a lifetime before him, was cut off in ambush; and your mother—was drowned in the Cowlitz. I want to have you—safe."
He began to walk the floor, slowly, with his hands still clasped behind him, his head bent, a cloud on his face. And she waited in respectful silence, watching him with a sweet and regretful tenderness in her eyes. She believed she understood those memories from which had sprung all his great kindness to her. Finally he stopped at the table and again spread out the plat. "This must be near the section Forrest told me about," he said. "Why, it looks like the very one. He was debating on taking it up, himself, at the time I offered him the management at Freeport."
Her glance fell before his inquiring look, and the ready color flamed. "Paul doesn't know," she said. "Please say nothing about it to any one. You see, Uncle Silas,—you see—the country is being settled very fast, and if I don't make this entry, some one else will."
There was another brief silence, then the Judge said, "Poor Forrest! you are even bent on taking his chosen section of land."
The color leaped again in her face. She moved a few steps to the window and stood with her back to him, looking down through the orchard to the shimmering Sound. "He told you?" she said.
"Yes, he told me. I asked him. It had always seemed so natural you should care something for him; he is well worth caring for. It seems incredible that you should refuse a fine, interesting young fellow like him." He paused, and his voice took its soft undernote. "I asked him, Alice, because I want to take you to Washington. There is only one way I can ask you to go. My dear, you understand—I love you."
She moved, startled, and laid her hand on the casing, where Forrest's had been, waiting. It was the gesture of a woman who feels suddenly, without premonition, the foundations of her world shake. He saw her shoulders lift; her whole body trembled. His glance passed from her, through the window, and on down the slope to the shining sea, and slowly returned. "It is, then, impossible," he said. "I am impossible. Well, forget all about it, little girl; it's all right. It's all right. Your happiness first; nothing else counts."
"Dear Uncle Silas." She turned, smiling, though her lip quivered and she brushed her hand across her eyes. "You count. I owe all I am to you. And you—are not impossible. I—I'm very fond of you. Its true—Silas." She nodded her head brightly, and dashed her hand again across her eyes. "And I will go to Washington—I'll be—glad—proud—to be—your wife—as soon as the homestead is safe."