“Yes,” the girl replied, turning her clear gaze toward him. “It is about Fleet Foot.”
“I knew it,” was the unexpected response, and Winona looked up inquiringly. “Why, how could you know it?” Then, as the lad did not answer, she continued: “This afternoon I told you about the kind, elderly physician in the East who was so pleased with Fleet Foot’s spirit of a sacrifice, and how, when the lad was well enough to be moved from the hospital, Doctor Quinton took him to his country home in New Jersey, where he remained through the three lovely months of spring?”
Harry nodded. He could not understand why Winona was beginning her story in this way if the secret was what he believed it to be, that the Indian maiden and Fleet Foot cared for each other.
“Are you listening, Harry?” the girl asked, for the lad was gazing at the burning log with a faraway expression in his grey-blue eyes.
He turned and smiled at her. “Indeed I am, Winona,” he said, “I am greatly interested in what you have to tell me.”
“So am I, greatly interested,” the girl continued. “It is all like a beautiful poem, and yet, true. The summer home of this kind old physician is a picturesque log cabin in the midst of a pine wood just above a clear blue lake which Fleet Foot described as a wonderful mirror reflecting every fleecy white cloud that sailed above it by day and every star at night. When they first arrived at the cabin they heard singing somewhere among the pines, and then, skipping toward them came a gold-and-white fairy of a girl who was Sylvia, the granddaughter of Doctor Quinton. She was delighted because her ‘dear old grand-dad,’ as she called him, had brought a comrade, and, as the days passed, Fleet Foot learned to love this lassie who was so unlike—well, so unlike the Papago maidens.
“He called her ‘Sunshine-on-a-Dancing-Brook.’ Fleet Foot never spoke of his love, for he believed that the physician, much as he liked him, would not wish him to marry his granddaughter, the flower of his life, but when Fleet Foot came West, that little flower drooped, and then it was that Doctor Quinton learned that Sylvia cared for Fleet Foot, really cared, and now comes the wonderful part of it all. Yesterday my friend had a letter from the elderly physician asking him to return to them if he really loved his little ‘Sunshine-on-a-Dancing-Brook.’ Fleet Foot came to say goodbye, for tomorrow he departs.”
There was a glad light in the eyes of the listener.
“Winona,” Harry said, more impulsively than he had ever before spoken, “I thought you cared for Fleet Foot and I was sad, for I do so want to try to win your love.”
Winona did not reply at once, and, as there was only the light of the fire about them, the lad could not tell by her expression what she might be thinking.