“Walter!” and Katie lowered her voice, and nestling closer to her lover, glanced nervously around in the twilight. “I am afraid of him. Father distrusts him. He fears the existence of a band of robbers in that dreadful forest. You know men have gone in there and have never come out.”
“Besides that rich man, that trapper that found the treasure somewhere in Mexico. You know the day he left us to go to St. Louis, screams were heard coming from the woods, and the people on the other side did not see him come out. Then father found blood and marks of violence in a small glade. Oh, Walter, I am afraid something is wrong.”
“Nonsense, Katie dear! every thing is quiet. There are no Indians here now, at least in the neighborhood, and even if danger did come, am I not here, my own?”
“Hush, Walter! some one is coming; see!” and she pointed to an approaching shadow. Walter Ridgely withdrew his embrace and sat in a more decorous attitude. Katie’s face expressed discontent at the interruption. The form approached; it was a man.
“Why Walter! it is Charles Danforth!” she whispered.
Walter arose to go. She caught him and begged him to stay—she was afraid to be alone with him, she said. So he again sat down.
It was Danforth (or Downing, for he it was) approaching quite near, humming a jaunty tune.
“Good-evening, Miss Jeffries,” he said, bowing. “And you, Ridgely; how is your health?”
He extended his hand to Katie, who took it reluctantly. Ditto Walter.
Then he seated himself on the doorstep and at once began a lively, rattling conversation. He was a versatile, vivacious conversationalist, and had been educated well. To the backwoods girl, though she had lived at one time in a civilized community, he seemed a paragon of learning, wit and beauty.