A girl. A white girl. Oh, yes, there was no mistake, for all the mannishness of her clothing. Marcel stared. He had listened to her words of regret barely comprehending their drift. He was absorbed by that which he beheld, wondering, amazed.
A white girl here, alone in the primordial world of—Unaga.
From the pretty, fair hair peeping from under her beaver cap to the moccasined feet, so absurdly small, under the wide-cut buckskin chapps or trousers that clad her nether limbs, he searched stupidly for the answer to the thousand questions which flooded his brain. Who was she? How came she there? That amazing shot?
He noted her eyes, so wide and deep-fringed, and of a blue such as he had never yet beheld in the Northern skies. Their dazzling light left him almost dizzy with intoxication. Her cheeks, perfect, with the bloom of health acquired in a life of exposure to the elements. Then her sweet lips parted in a smile that revealed a hint of even teeth of pearly whiteness. But these things were not all. No. There was her tall, slim figure under its buckskin clothing. The effect was superlative.
What a vision for passionate youthful eyes to gaze upon in the shadowed world of the Northern forests, where life and death rub shoulders every moment of time. The youth in Marcel was aflame. There flashed through his mind a vague memory of the wooing of the painted women of Seal Bay.
The girl's explanation, her regrets, meant nothing to him.
"What—? Where? Who are you?" he blurted, all his amazed delight flung into a startled demand.
"I'm Keeko."
The reply was without a shadow of hesitation. It came simply, for the wide, amused eyes had seen the youth's confusion, and the woman's mind behind them approved.
"I'm Keeko," the girl repeated, as Marcel still struggled for composure. "And I came right along in a hurry to tell you I'm sorry——"