"Further than either," replied the lad, gayly.
"But you may have a heavy burden to carry," rejoined Sir William. "Do you think you can bear it--I mean the burden of a secret?"
"I will not drop it by the way," answered Walter, gravely.
"Not if the sachem's daughter offer to divide the load?" asked his companion.
"Doubt me not," said Walter.
"I do not," said Sir William. "I do not; but I would have you warned. And now farewell. You are very young to meet maidens in the wood. Be careful. Farewell."
He rode on, and the boy tarried by the roadside and meditated.
In about two minutes he took his way up the stream again, still musing, toward the place where he had laid down his rod.
He sprang up the bank, and in amongst the maples; and some ten minutes after, the sun rising higher, poured its light through the stems upon a boy and girl seated at the foot of an old tree; he with his arms around her, and his hand resting on the soft, brown, velvety skin, and she with her head upon his bosom, and her warm lips within the reach of his.
Her skin was brown, I have said, yes, very brown, but still hardly browner than his own. Her eyes were dark and bright, of the true Indian hue, but larger and more open than is at all common in many of the tribes of Iroquois. Her lips, too, were rosy, and as pure of all tinge of brown as those of any child of Europe; and her fingers, also, were stained of Aurora's own hue. But her long, silky black hair would have spoken her race at once had not each tress terminated in a wavy curl. The lines of the form and of the face were all wonderfully lovely, too, and yet were hardly those which characterize so peculiarly the Indian nations. The nose was straighter, the cheek bones less prominent, the head more beautifully set upon the shoulders. The expression, too, as she rested there with her cheek leaning on his breast, was not that of the usual Indian countenance. It was softer, more tender, more impassioned; for though romance and poetry have done all they could to spiritualize the character of Indian love, I fear, from what I have seen and heard and known, it is rarely what it has been portrayed. Her face, however, was full of love and tenderness and emotion; and the picture of the two as they sat there told at once of a tale of love just spoken to a willing ear.