The girl raised her eyes. She was very young. But it was the day of young marriages. The stress of life brought early maturity and Alagwa was older far than her years. “Do you love me?” she asked, gravely.
Jack colored. Then he opened his mouth to begin the ready masculine lie.
But before he could utter it Alagwa cut him short. “Do not answer!” she said, sadly but firmly. “I know you do not. You like me as a comrade—a jolly good comrade—not as a wife. Soon you go back home and you find the sweet, gentle lady of whom you speak today—or some other like her. You have no place in your life for the brown wood-girl. For the wood-boy you have a place, perhaps, but not for the wood-girl. I know it. And I can not marry you!”
“That’s nonsense,” Jack spoke irritably. He had offered to marry the girl because he thought she cared for him, because he felt that he owed it to her, and because he felt his honor was involved. He had not yet had time to think of her as anything but a boy—a comrade. Scarcely had he realized that she was a woman. But the moment she refused him, his desires began to mount. Jack was a real man and resembled most of his sex.
“That’s nonsense!” he repeated. “There isn’t any ‘sweet, gentle lady.’ There was one, I admit. But she—she was older than I, and she’s engaged and probably married and—Oh! I’ve forgotten her long ago. I’m awfully fond of you and——”
“And I was fond of Wilwiloway—the chief that Williams murdered so cruelly. The council of women say that he might take me to his wigwam. But he say no; he want me not unless I love him. Shall I be less brave than he? I did not love him and—and—you do not love me. So—so——”
“But I do love you!” For the moment Jack thought he did. “I do love you,” he insisted; eagerly. “Haven’t I told you often how glad I was that I found you? Hadn’t I planned to take you to Alabama with me? Haven’t I sworn dozens of times that you were the jolliest little friend I ever had? Doesn’t that show that I love you? I couldn’t say more—thinking you were a boy! Come, be reasonable! The priest will be here in a minute. Say you’ll marry me?”
Jack was speaking well. His arguments were unanswerable. His tones were fervid. His wishes were unmistakable. But his words did not carry conviction. He saw it and changed his arguments.
“You really must marry me, little comrade!” he pleaded. “Don’t you see you must. You—You’ve been with me for more than a month and—and—You remember what I said to you while we were riding down the Maumee—about a girl getting talked about if she—I said if the man didn’t marry her he ought to be shot. You remember? You won’t put me in such a position? Oh! You really must marry me!”
But the girl shook her head. “No!” she said, firmly. “No!” She held out her hand. “Good-by!” she said.