He and Lina had become intimate friends, while with Jeanette there was only an armed truce breaking into frequent warfare.
Lina laughed.
"Jeanette talks as if I casually picked up a book and there ran across a legend of a 'Silver Arrow.' The truth is I searched diligently for days. Whether or not it is true we cannot be certain, but the arrow we discovered seems to be an ancient one, which makes it more than ever a mystery."
"Well, do go on with your story, Lina; we are most impatient to hear," Martha Putnam, one of Lina's girl friends, expostulated.
Lina, who was accustomed to speaking slowly and deliberately, refused to be hurried.
The little circle gathered more closely about her.
"Please don't think I associate this story with our arrow. I only tell it to you for what it is worth. In any case it is an interesting tale, for one reason because the arrowheads of the American Indians were sometimes tipped with bronze or brass, never with silver. We know they had learned the uses of the first two metals before they were acquainted with the third."
Eda, who had been wandering around on the outskirts of the company, too shy to associate with them, at her sister's words came and slipped her hand inside a young man's. He was John Marshall, a number of years older than his present companions.
He appeared deeply interested in Lina's story.
"Long ago," Lina began in the approved story-telling fashion, "we know there was a race living in our western country who were possessed of far greater knowledge than our American Indians. They are supposed to have dwelt in ancient cities long since buried beneath the earth, to have learned the arts of weaving and dyeing, the use of bronze and copper and gold and silver.