The stranger laughed. “You have not forgotten all your Western jingle, even though you have been gone a year and a half. I saw a young woman up the road a way. Perhaps she is the sister you are searching.”
Just then James caught sight of the girl, and hastily summoning her to come forward, introduced her to his old friend and comrade, after scolding her, half seriously, for staying away so long without telling him where she was going.
Smiling at her brother, Bess Fletcher turned to look into one of the strongest faces and the most unfathomable eyes she had ever seen. The features were unmistakably Indian, and it was hard to believe that the man was only a quarter-blood, as she knew. The square chin and wide, sensitive mouth, the dilated nostrils and prominent cheek bones stamped the face with character, strength and determination. One could see in the gloomy depths of the eyes a strange intermingling of sympathy, with the truculent gleam which had shone for centuries in the eyes of his ancestors. They impressed one, that he would either be wholly white, or entirely Indian, according to circumstances or environment.
As Bess turned to acknowledge the introduction, her hand, half raised, paused as she measured this man.
“Mr. West. But—but,” she added hesitatingly, “you do not look one bit as I—”
West’s lips parted in a smile as he replied, “Had you expected to see me with a blanket on and a feather in my hair? I hope you are not greatly disappointed.”
For a moment she was nonplussed. “Oh, no! But you are different somehow, and if there is any disappointment it is a happy one.”
“Thank you, Miss Fletcher,” came in a low and almost inaudible voice.
James had been listening with interest. “I guess I had impressed her that you looked more like—” he floundered and ended tactlessly, “well, like me, than an Indian, Henry.”
The “breed’s” eyes closed spasmodically and his teeth shut hard before he replied. “Jim, sometimes I feel that I could willingly be skinned alive, if it would make me—like you.”