CHAPTER II.
THE SUDDEN AWAKENING.
"Listen to me, Olive, and believe that I feel very deeply the words my tongue utters. You have become very dear to me—dearer than any thing else of this world—and I love you, Olive."
The girl glanced swiftly up from under her long lashes, then dropped her eyes again and her face was crimsoned with blushes, and the little hand he had obtained and was holding firmly, though tenderly, trembled fitfully, and nothing save a sigh escaped her lips.
"Olive," he continued, drawing still nearer to her, "it can not be that I am mistaken—that you look coldly upon me—that you take no pleasure in my society—can not be that you have not seen the true state of my heart? Tell me, am I disagreeable to you?"
"Oh! no, no," she murmured, in deep agitation.
"Then, darling—may I not call you so? Give me hope for the future. When we have finished our journey and the shores of the Pacific are reached, may I not believe you will become mine—be my wife?"
As actions speak even louder than words, so hers told him all he desired to know, and with the clouds of doubt drifted away from their souls, peace came, and love given and returned made them very happy.
Like all unmarried men who cross the plains, when there are pretty women in the company, the doctor, Ernest Mayo, soon found that he had a heart, and that its longings took but one direction.