The young man looked for his preserver. Judge of his astonishment when forth from the bushes that fringed the rocks, with a rifle in hand—a very forest queen—came a young girl!
CHAPTER IV.
THE GIRL THAT FIRED THE SHOT.
Winthrop looked with amazed eyes upon his preserver, for that the girl had saved his life by coming so timely to his rescue, there was hardly a doubt.
The young man saw a beautiful girl, clad in the Indian fashion, her garb gayly fringed and decorated with colored beads. But though clad in the garb of the Indian, more white blood than red leaped in the veins of the forest child.
Her skin was of a rich olive tinge; a peculiar skin—so thin, despite its darkness, that it showed the quick play of the surging blood in the veins beneath.
Dark-brown hair floated in tangled masses from the fillet of deer-skin, adorned with eagle-plumes, that encircled her head. Her eyes were dark brown in their hue, and large and full as the eyes of the deer.
Grace was in every motion, yet one could easily see that the graceful limbs were strong and sinewy—muscles of steel beneath the silken skin.
Lightly the girl bounded down, from rock to rock, until she reached the bottom of the defile wherein stood the two by the carcass of the dead bear who had fallen by the rifle of this forest fay.
Nor was Virginia less astonished at the sudden appearance of the dark-hued maiden than the young stranger.