“Dinner is served,” he said.
“Really I—I don’t think I can eat a thing,” she faltered, looking up at him.
“I know,” he returned gravely, “but perhaps if you try—“ he placed a chair for her and stood expectantly.
And Marta felt herself compelled to obey his unspoken will. Perhaps because of the strange effect of the Indian’s personality upon her, or perhaps because she sought relief from the pain of thoughts which she could not express, the girl encouraged the red man to talk of his life in the mountains. And Natachee, as if courteously willing to serve her purpose, followed her conversational leadings with no mention of her own life in the Cañada del Oro or of her friends. Over their simple meal, of which Marta managed to partake because she felt she must, he told her of his hunting experiences and drew from his seemingly inexhaustible store of desert and mountain lore many strange and interesting things. Nor was there, in anything that he said or in his way of speaking, the slightest hint of his Indian nature.
As they left the table, and Marta resumed her seat before the fire, she said:
“But I do not understand how a man educated as you are can be satisfied to live like—“ she hesitated.
“Like an Indian?” he finished for her.
There was a long moment of silence before he replied with a marked change in his voice:
“I live like an Indian because I am an Indian. Because if I would I could not be anything else.”