CHAPTER IX.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
My steps are turned away;
Yet my eyes linger still
On their beloved hill,
In one long, last survey;
Gazing, through tears that multiply the view,
Their passionate adieu.—Mrs. Barrett.
"There is a train starts homeward to-morrow, Elizabeth. We can not have a better opportunity for going East under good protection. It will be no easier for you to part from your friends a month or a year from now—so I think best to warn you of my decision. You'll be happy with your father, will you not? I am sure you will. This is no place for you. I can surround you with circumstances which will make you as glad and gay as the birds; and you will be my darling, my life, my all, my daughter!"
The deep feeling with which Dr. Carollyn spoke made his voice tremble and stirred the heart of the young girl strangely. She raised her wistful eyes to his; she pressed his hand to assure him of her gratitude and affection—but what little light and color still remained in her pale face faded out, leaving it as white and fixed as death. First she glanced into the little log-cabin where Mrs. Wright was too busy over the wash-tub to hear what had been said, then out in the sunshine where the children were playing, and then her gaze wandered to the pine-forests far away. Wreaths of blue smoke still curled from the charred trunks of millions of trees and floated like a thin haze in the west and south. The settlement had been excited for many days, by melancholy reports of the loss of life occasioned by that disastrous fire.
The charred remains of a company of four persons had been found in one spot, whose names and history must forever remain unknown—strangers in a strange land—so perishing as to leave no link by which to connect them with their friends, whoever these might be. Wild rumors, setting the loss of life from thirty to a hundred, as already known, floated about, growing from day to day.
The fate of Nat Wolfe had made a profound impression, and still cast a shadow upon the thoughts of his former friends. Buckskin Joe had himself undertaken to communicate the tidings to the Wrights, feeling more than any other person that the news would harrow one young heart most cruelly. He had watched, with sagacious quiet, the progress of affairs between the young people—had secretly chafed at the cold repulsion of Dr. Carollyn's manner toward the haughty hunter who would not make a single concession in advance—had thought he saw that Elizabeth was the deepest sufferer by this state of things—and had been making up his mind to tell Nat that he was a great fool not to take the young girl, in despite of her father—when the events of the last chapter so tragically cut short his plans for the two lovers.
"I'll be danged if I hadn't rather face the fire ag'in than to tell her," said the guide to himself, feeling wretchedly, "but thar's no one will break it so easy, mebbe—and I've got to out with it—that's all!"
He went straight to the log-cabin, in which the Wrights were established, more through the energy of Dr. Carollyn than any exertion of their own. The sunset streamed pleasantly into the little room, whose entrance-way was unopposed by other door than a piece of wagon-cover, which was let down at night.