"Remembered you, indeed!" cried Anstice. "I should think he ought to; but I am sorry to hear that he is wounded, for he is a splendid fellow. Isn't it wonderful, though, that Lieutenant Douglass went through that same awful battle, and came out without injury. I can't understand it."
"In a battle where Coacoochee commands, no friend of Ralph Boyd can be struck, save by accident," replied Nita, simply.
"Do you believe that? If I thought it were true, I should love your Indian hero almost as much as you do, dear. I wonder, though, if that can be the secret of Irwin's escape?"
So the two girls talked and became drawn more closely to each other with their exchange of innocent confidences.
On the following day, Nita rode Ko-ee as usual, though not in the direction of the magnolia spring; but on the one after, she haunted its banks for hours. She went to it in the morning, reluctantly returning to the house for lunch and to have Ko-ee fed at noon, and made her way back to the place appointed for meeting her brother, as soon afterwards as she could frame a decent excuse for so doing.
She was in the gayest of spirits as she rode away, and she laughingly called back to Anstice, "To-morrow, dear, I am going to spend the whole day with you."
"Isn't it a pleasure to see her so happy?" asked Anstice of her brother, as they watched the girl ride away. "And did you ever see such a change in so short a time? A few days ago she was listless and apparently indifferent whether she lived or not. Now she is full of life, and interested in everything. Then, I did not consider her even good-looking; while at this minute, she seems to me one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw."
"Yes," replied Boyd, "I have noticed the change; but I wish, Anstice, you would persuade her to give up these lonely rambles; though she has promised me not to go beyond the limits of the plantation, I can't help feeling uneasy. If I weren't so awfully busy, I would ride with her myself, since she insists on riding."
"No you wouldn't, brother," laughed Anstice. "I couldn't afford to have the jealousy of the savage lover aroused in that way. Besides, it is absurd to regard Nita as though she were a daughter of civilization, needing to have every step carefully guarded. In spite of her sweetness, and the readiness with which she has fallen into our ways, she is still so much of an Indian as to be more at home in the trackless forest, than in the chaco of the Iste-hatke, as she is pleased to term the house of the white man. So let her alone, brother; for, if she is to be the wife of an Indian, the more she retains of her Indian habits, the better it will be for her."
Thus Nita was allowed to go her own way. And when, at sunset, she had not returned, but little uneasiness was felt in the great house on her account, though Anstice did sit with her gaze fixed on the long avenue up which she expected each moment to see the truant appear.