"Can't you make her understand, Mr. Arnold?" she pleaded. "I don't
know a word of her language, and I so want to be her friend--so want
to take her to my home!"
And then the frontiersman did a thing for which, when she heard of it
one sunset later, his better half said words of him and to him that
overstepped all bounds of parliamentary usage, and that only a wife
would dare to employ. With the blundering stupidity of his sex, poor
Arnold "settled things" for many a day and well-nigh ruined the
sweetest romance that Sandy had ever seen the birth of.
"Ah, Miss Angela! only one place will ever be home to Natzie now. Her
eyes will tell you that."
And already, regardless of anything these women of the white chiefs
might think or say, unafraid save of seeing him no more, unashamed
save of being where she could not heed his every look or call or
gesture, the daughter of the mountain and the desert stood gazing
again after the vanished form her eyes long months had worshiped, and
the daughter of the schools and civilization stood flushing one-half
moment, then slowly paling, as, without another glance or effort, she
turned silently away. Kate Sanders it was who sprang quickly after her
and encircled the slender waist with her fond and clasping arm.
That night the powers of all Camp Sandy were exhausted in effort to
suitably provide for Natzie and her two companions. Mrs. Sanders, Mrs.
Bridger, even Mother Shaughnessy and Norah pleaded successively with
this princess of the wilderness, and pleaded in vain. Food and
shelter elsewhere they proffered in abundance. Natzie sat stubbornly
at the major's steps, and sadly at first, and angrily later, shook her
head to every proposition. Then they brought food, and Lola and
Alchisay ate greedily. Natzie would hardly taste a morsel. Every time
Plume or Graham or a soldier nurse came forth her mournful eyes would
study his face as though imploring news of the sufferer, who lay
unconscious of her vigil, if not of her existence. Graham's treatment
was beginning to tell, and Blakely was sleeping the sleep of the just.
They had not let him know of the poor girl's presence at the door.
They would not let her in for fear he might awake and see her, and ask
the reason of her coming. They would not send or take her away, for
all Sandy was alive with the strange story of her devotion. The
question on almost every lip was "How is this to end?"