Another canoe, with a woman in it, skimmed over the waters in the twilight that evening—a woman with all the gladness of youth in her bright eyes, and an eagerness for the north country that far outstripped the speed of the boat.
Each dark tree-trunk as it loomed up from the shores, each glint of the after-glow as it lighted the ripples, each whisper of the fresh, soft wind of the mountains, was to her as a special welcome. All of them touched her with the sense of a friendship that had been faithful. That she was no more to them than any of the strangers who came and went on the current, she could not believe; for they all meant so much, so very much to her.
She asked for a paddle, that she might once more feel against her strength the strong rush of the mountain river. She caressed its waves and reached out her hands to the bending boughs, and laughter and sighs touched her lips.
“Never again!” she whispered, as if a promise was being made; “never again! my wilderness!”
The man who had charge of the canoe—a stalwart, red-whiskered man of perhaps forty-five—looked at her a good deal in a cautious way. She was so unlike any of the girls he had ever seen—so gay, so free of speech 343 with each stranger or Indian who came their way; so daintily garbed in a very correct creation of some city tailor; and, above all, so tenderly careful of a child who slept among the rugs at her feet, and looked like a bit of pink blossom against the dark furs.
“You are a stranger here, aren’t you?” she asked the man. “I saw no one like you running a boat here last summer.”
“No, no,” he said, slowly; “I didn’t then. My camp is east of Bonner’s Ferry, quite a ways; but I get around here sometimes, too. I don’t run a boat only for myself; but when they told me a lady wanted to get to Twin Springs, I didn’t allow no scrub Indians to take her if my boat was good enough.”
“It is a lovely boat,” she said, admiringly; “the prettiest I ever saw on this river, and it is very good of you to bring me yourself. That is one of the things makes me realize I am in the West once more—to be helped simply because I am a girl alone. And you didn’t even know my name when you offered to bring me.”
“No, but I did before I left shore,” he answered; “and then I counted myself kind of lucky. I—I’ve heard so much about you, miss, from folks up at Twin Springs; from one lady there in particular—Mrs. Huzzard.”
“Oh! so you know her, do you?” she asked, and wondered at the self-conscious look with which he owned up that he did—a little.