“Well, as I said, I saw her three days ago, out just beyond the big red rock; you know where that is. I didn’t mention it to any of you, because we had all been deriding Hark Bogan so unmercifully about her, that I was ashamed to tell what I had seen. You may remember that I was unusually quiet, that night, after getting back to camp. I told you I felt tired, but I was thinking.
“You know that the red rock is just on the top of a high swell—the highest ground for miles around. I was climbing this—as my nag was tired and heavily loaded with meat—on foot. Mott suddenly raised his head and whickered. Even had there not come a quick reply, that would have told me there was another horse near by, but a neigh did come from directly ahead of me.
“I was then almost on the top of the swell, and so could just see the top of the big rock. And there, beside it, she was. You know how high the rock is. Well, as she sat her horse, her head was on a level with the highest part of the rock, so you can judge she was no baby.
“I remembered Bogan’s description the moment I saw this, and knew that I must be looking upon his ‘wild woman.’ At first I could only see her head and shoulders. On her head she wore a small cap of some kind of fur, with two or three brightly dyed eagle-feathers, such as the Kiowas wear. Her dress—what I could see of it—seemed to be made of tanned fawn-skin, trimmed in Indian style.
“I took in this much at a glance, and as it was nearly dark, I naturally thought she was some Indian. I knew that only a woman could wear such hair as that which hung down her back. I even laughed as I thought how crestfallen old Hark would be, when I proved to him that his lovely white phantom was nothing more than some wandering Indian squaw.
“Thinking this I kept on until close to the rock, and not half a dozen lengths from the stranger. Then she lifted a hand and motioned for me to pause. That she meant this, I saw from her turning the muzzle of a light, handsome rifle toward my breast, it resting between the ears of her horse. She seemed like one who had smelled powder before, and I obeyed her.
“Now I could see that she was white—though her complexion was that of a rich brunette. A more beautiful face I never saw. I can’t describe it—only that her great big eyes were black and shining as those of a deer; that her figure was the most superbly developed, the most symmetrical that I ever beheld in my life. Boys, that face and figure has haunted me ever since. If that woman is as good and pure as she is beautiful, she would be well worth dying for!” suddenly added Hawksley, puffing vigorously at his extinguished pipe.
“And still better living for—eh, Fred?” and Ned Campbell laughed. “But go on—you spoke to her—this marvelous beauty?”
“Yes—but not until she spoke first to me. I was still staring at her, amazed, for I knew that she did not live anywhere around here—at least with any one I know, and there’s few families in the State that I do not know. She said:
“‘What is your name?’