And Eva Thornhill? Her opportunity had come, and she had taken it as a gift from the gods. Suddenly she knew that Philip was merged in her personality, and she reveled in the bloom of quickly grown, fully developed passion. By the time the lieutenant assisted her from her mare at the colonel's headquarters she was ready to think that there was nothing to keep them apart. So quickly, hotly, does young blood run!
Her answer to the question that was ready to slip from his tongue—what would it be? As Danvers lifted the flushing girl from her mount, her eyes gave promise beneath their long-lashed veiling that the answer would not be "no."
It was not many days before Major Thornhill took his daughter to task for her neglect of Mr. Burroughs.
"Don't you let go of Burroughs," he counseled, with brutal sordidness. "These young lawyers and lieutenants haven't a cent, so far as I can find out. Burroughs has money and will have more. Remember that an army officer never has anything to leave to his mourners."
Eva shrugged her shoulders; but her training showed her the wisdom of her father's advice, and she bestowed more favor on the trader than he had received for several days. However, she decided that one more ride with the lieutenant she must have, and so impetuous was Philip that she allowed him to say more than she intended he should. His wooing was eager, headlong.
As they drew near the town on their return from their long ride, the girl saw a squaw peering from the bushes beside the trail.
"Who is that squaw?" she asked, petulantly. "It seems to me that I never go out but she is near me!"
"Oh—er——" he stammered, losing, for a moment, his self-possession as he recognized Burroughs' property. He knew that the trader had pledged his intimates to secrecy as to his relations with Pine Coulee while Miss Thornhill was a visitor at Macleod, and he, while not pledged, would be the last one to bring her in any way to Eva's notice. "Oh," he began again, "she's a Blackfoot."
"That is evasion, pure and simple!" retorted his companion. "She wants either to speak to me—or to kill me, I've not decided which. Wait here! I am going to speak to her!"
"You are probably the first white woman she ever saw," Philip tried vainly to make a satisfactory explanation; but, to his consternation, Eva was gone.