Oliver, too, was now gazing into the cañon, but he saw neither crags nor trees nor rushing green river.
"And he grew to like me," her low tones continued. "We talked on many subjects, but mostly of what we've been talking about today.
"He was an idealist, this man. He was comparatively wealthy, but there are things in life that he placed above money and its accumulation. By and by he grew to like me more and more, and finally he told me point blank that I was his ideal woman; and then he grew confidential and told me all about himself—his past, present, and what he hoped for in the future. And in my hands he placed a trust. Please God, I have tried to keep the faith!"
She threw back her head and followed the flight of an eagle soaring serenely over Lime Rock. And with her eyes thus lifted she softly said:
"That man was Peter Drew—your father."
Oliver's breast heaved, but he made no sound. Once more her eyes were sweeping the abyss.
"That's the middle," she said. "Now I'll go back to the beginning and tell you what Peter Drew entrusted to my keeping.
"Thirty years ago Peter Drew, who then called himself Dan Smeed, was the partner of Adam Selden. They mined and hunted and trapped together throughout this country.
"There were other activities, too, which I shall not mention. You understand. Your father told me all about it, kept nothing back. Remember that I said he was my idea of a man; and if in his youth he had been wild and—well, seemed criminally inclined—I found that easy to forget. Certainly the manliness and sacrifice of his later years wiped out all this a thousand times.
"Well, to proceed: Peter Drew and Adam Selden married Indian girls. Peter Drew won out in the fire dance and became a member of the Showut Poche-dakas. Adam Selden failed, and, according to the custom, took his wife from the tribe and lived with her elsewhere. Six months afterward the wife of Selden died.