The shot told. Her arms dropped, she visibly paled. The white man's blood in Rina's cheeks betrayed her at the moments when most she desired to secrete her heart. She lowered her head to hide her stricken eyes from him. Suddenly she turned and fled through the trees.
Garth was beginning to believe that Rina after all was not so different from her white sisters; if so, he thought she would come back. Natalie, who had overheard all that passed, said so too. Garth wished to carry Natalie out of the tent, that she might help him work with the girl; but Natalie, with better wisdom, said no, that Rina would be more tractable if she were out of sight.
Meanwhile he set to work with an air of unconcern he was far from feeling—there were a hundred ways this plan of his might miscarry, and only one way it could succeed! He tied old Cy to his stake again; and carefully gathered up what remained of the herbs Rina had cast on the ground. He unloaded the seized supplies and made a temporary cache under a piece of sail-cloth.
By and by, while he was so engaged, he became aware that Rina was hovering about among the trees. He went on with his task, carefully avoiding any notice of her. She approached by devious stages, like a child drawn against its will. When it became impossible longer to conceal herself, she came into the open with her old, wistful, sullen, inscrutable face. Garth went about his work, displaying no anxiety to treat. He made her speak first.
"What you want say to me?" she asked at last, feigning supreme indifference.
"Sit down," he said.
She dropped obediently on the grass; and averted her head. She did not squat like the other red people; but reclined, supporting herself on one hand, much as Natalie might have done.
Garth lit his pipe, considering what simple, figurative form of words would best appeal to her understanding.
"I do not wish Mabyn harm," he began mildly. "He is nothing to me. My heart knows only one wish—to make her well, and to take her back safely to her friends outside. To accomplish that, I will let nothing stop me!"
He paused to let it sink in. Rina gave no sign of having even heard.