Gretchen started; she trembled she knew not why, then buried her face in her arms on the rude log desk and sobbed.
She raised her head at last, and went out, singing—
"In the desert let me labor."
It was a glorious sundown in autumn. The burning disk of the sun hung in clouds of pearl like an oriel-window in a magnificent temple. Black shadows fell on the placid waters of the Columbia, and in the limpid air under the bluffs Indians fished for salmon, and ducks and grebes sported in river weeds.
Marlowe Mann went away from the log school-house that night a happy man. He had seen that his plans in life were already budding. He cared little for himself, but only for the cause to which he devoted his life—to begin Christian education in the great empire of Oregon.
But how unexpected this episode was, and how far from his early dreams! His spirit had inspired first of all this orphan girl from the Rhine, who had been led here by a series of strange events. This girl had learned faith from her father's prayers. On the Rhine she had never so much as heard of the Columbia—the new Rhine of the sundown seas.
CHAPTER XIII.
A WARNING.
One evening, as Gretchen was sitting outside of the lodge, she saw the figure of a woman moving cautiously about in the dim openings of the fir-trees. It was not the form of an Indian woman—its movement was mysterious. Gretchen started up and stood looking into the darkening shadows of the firs. Suddenly the form came out of the clearing—it was Mrs. Woods. She waved her hand and beckoned to Gretchen, and then drew back into the forest and disappeared.