“A little Indian girl gave me this; she found it blowing along—they tell me you are Mr. Macdonald,” she said, her face as serious as his own. “I thought it might be a subscription list for a church, or something, and that you might want it.”
“Thank you, Miss Landcraft,” said he, his voice low-modulated, his manner easy.
Her face colored at the unexpected way of this man without a coat, who spoke her name with the accent of refinement, just as if he had known her, and had met her casually upon the way.
“I have seen you a hundred times at the post and the agency,” he explained, to smooth away her confusion. “I have seen you from afar.”
“Oh,” said she, as lame as the word was short.
He was scanning the written paper. Now he looked at her, a smile waking in his eyes. It moved in slow illumination over his face, but did not break his lips, pressed in their stern, strong line. She saw that his long hair was light, and that his eyes were gray, with sandy brows over them which stood on end at the points nearest his nose, from a habit of bending them in concentration, she supposed, as he had been doing but a moment before he smiled.
“No, it isn’t a church subscription, Miss Landcraft, it’s for a cemetery,” said he.
“Oh,” said she again, wondering why she did not go back to Major King, whose horse appeared restive, and in need of the spur, which the major gave him unfeelingly.
At the same time she noted that Alan Macdonald’s forehead was broad and deep, for his leather-weighted hat was pushed back from it where his fair, straight hair lay thick, and that his bony chin had a little croft in it, and that his face was long, and hollowed like a student’s, and that youth was in his eyes in spite of the experience which hardships of unknown kind had written across his face. Not a handsome man, but a strong one in his way, whatever that way might be.