“Tom, you are an old hunter, and know more of the red-men and their ways than I do, but that doesn’t signify that you are in no need of counsel. I was wandering through this section, when I discovered your danger. It was not the situation of your body, so much as it was the condition of your mind. You had found gold, and were so excited over it, that a Blackfoot might have slipped up behind and tomahawked you. I saw it, and I got you up here, that you might recover your senses. There is gold down there—plenty of it; hunt carefully and you will find, but don’t look down all the while—LOOK UP!”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE LOVERS.
Hammond felt that he had done his duty. He had awakened the trapper to a sense of his personal danger, and that was enough. Without waiting for his reply, he moved rapidly away, taking a direction that led toward the Meagan village.
When he had gone a few hundred yards, a close scrutiny would have revealed that he was following a path—a very slight one, it is true, but still sufficiently defined to show that it was familiar to him.
On he walked, until he had traversed fully a mile, when he paused and began carefully to examine the bushes that overhung the path. Suddenly, he found a leaf that was twisted in a peculiar manner, and instantly his face brightened.
“She is coming! she is coming!” he exclaimed, to himself, after he had carefully examined it a moment.
The words were yet in his mouth, when a light footstep was heard, and the next instant a rare vision burst upon him.
She did not appear to be over twenty years of age at the most, and she was as beautiful as an Oriental dream. Her cheeks had the tint of the pearl, her hair was abundant, of glossy blackness, confined by a red band at the neck; her features were faultlessly regular, her eyes dark and lustrous, her form rounded and perfect, while the half-Indian dress, with its brilliant and varied colors, set her figure off to the best advantage.