“Thank you, but I must go. I am not much afraid for myself at any time, for I’ve known the red-skins always and—trusted them never! But a girl—did you ever hear of the Sun Maid?”
“Hear of her? Her? Well, I guess so! Who hasn’t, in these parts? Why?”
“It was to find her and protect her that I started last night from the Fort.”
“To protect her? Well, you could have saved your trouble. I wish that I was as safe in this wild country as she is. There is an old saying that her life is charmed; that nothing evil can ever happen to her; and so far it has proved true. As for the Indians, even the wickedest in the whole race would die to save her life. I hope you’ll find her, sir, all right; but if there’s any protecting to be done, she’ll protect you, not you her. Well, good-by, and good luck!”
Gaspar bared his head and rode away, on a straight trail this time, and with the exhilaration of the morning tingling through his healthful veins. On every side the great clouds of white mist rose and rolled apart. Blue violets and white windflowers began to peep upward at him from his path, and he remembered Kitty’s love for them. Then the sun broke through, and only those who have thus ridden across a dew-drenched prairie, at such an hour in such a season, can picture what that ride was like.
The spirit of life and love and that glorious morning thrilled both horse and master as they leaped forward and still forward till, on the top of a grassy rise, a sudden halt was made.
For what was this coming out of the west?—this fair white creature on her snowy mount, with the golden sunlight on her yellow hair, her glowing face, her modest maiden breast. Flowers wreathed her all about and a White Bow gleamed at her saddle horn. Behind her, and one on either side, rode dusky warriors, brave in their finest trappings and turning a reverent, attentive ear to the Maid’s words. Their horses’ footfalls deadened by the sodden grass, slowly they came into fuller view, as a picture grows under the painter’s brush.
Still the man on the black horse facing them sat still, spellbound. Could this be Kitty, his Kitty; to whom his thoughts had turned as to a half-grown, playful child, and over whom he had domineered with the masterful pride of boyhood? He was a man now, boyhood was past; but he had quite forgotten that girlhood also passes and the child becomes a woman.
He had grown rich and strong. After her supposed death he had devoted himself wholly to money-getting with the singleness of purpose that never fails of its object. He had come back to his old home to spend the fortune he had gained, feeling himself a master among men and his strength that of wisdom as well as wealth.
Now all his pride and arrogance passed from him before the nobility of this woman approaching. For on her youthful face sat the dignity which is higher than pride and from her beautiful eyes gleamed the beneficent love more far-reaching than wealth.