"I left Pike's Peak several months ago. I met Buckskin Joe on the plains. He wished me good-luck, told me to 'fear for the best,' and sent you, as a token of his everlasting friendship, this golden arrow, which he had manufactured from a lump of the precious metal which he took from that ravine. May I put it in your hair, dear Lizzie?
"I have been a long time at my father's home in this State—a home which I deserted years ago, driven forth into the wilds of the West by a silly and heartless girl that I have seen, this summer, fat, frowsy, and commonplace, boxing her children's ears. My dear mother was dead. But my father was alive and still preaching to a loving and devoted congregation. You wouldn't have guessed I was a minister's son, would you, little one? And a minister's son is almost as respectable as a doctor's daughter—particularly when he is worth half a million. Besides, I have shorn my shaggy coat. I'm not quite such a bear as I used to be. Do you think I am?"
She smiled as he bent his handsome face to look into her eyes; then her head drooped, until her face was hidden in his arm.
"I should have loved you as much, had you been just the same," she said. "But why did you stay away so long?—so near, and never to let me know?"
"Was it wrong, Lizzie? Perhaps it was, but I wanted to give you a chance to make a different choice if your taste inclined. When you knew me, you did not know the world. I would not take advantage of your ignorance. I came to this house with fear and trembling, but your sweet eyes told me the truth the moment I looked in them. Those eyes of yours! Well, my little girl, I don't know as they are any more beautiful than they were the first time they looked at me from under that faded sun-bonnet. They took Golden Arrow captive at the first glance."
Her head lay upon his breast.
"Those were strange days," she murmured.
And a sweet silence fell upon both. Up in the horizon of memory crept the herds of bison, whistled the midnight hurricane, rode the shy bands of stealthy savages, crept the long day of solitude and starvation, in which their love first spoke from mute eyes and clinging lips.
Dr. Carollyn admitted himself to the house with his night-key and stepped lightly into the library, with a kiss on his mouth ready for his daughter. He paused, as the tableau vivant of the happy lovers met his gaze; the smile suddenly died out and an awful frown gathered in its stead.
"Annie!"