"Go on, go on!" I cried. "What did you do? You have said that she is alive and safe!"
"She is," he answered, "but no thanks to me, though I did set lustily upon that painted fry. Who led them, d' ye think, Ralph? Who saved us from those bloody hands?"
A light broke in upon me. "I know," I said. "And he brought you here"-"Ay, he sent away the devils whose color he is, worse luck! He told us that there were Indians, not of his tribe, between us and the town. If we went on we should fall into their hands. But there was a place that was shunned by the Indian as by the white man: we could bide there until the morrow, when we might find the woods clear. He guided us to this dismal wood that was not altogether strange to us. Ay, he told her that you were alive. He said no more than that; all at once, when we were well within the wood and the twilight was about us, he was gone."
He ceased to speak, and stood regarding me with a smile upon his rugged face. I took his hand and raised it to my lips. "I owe you more than I can ever pay," I said. "Where is she, my friend?"
"Not far away," he answered. "We sought the centre of the wood, and because she was so chilled and weary and shaken I did dare to build a fire there. Not a foe has come against us, and we waited but for the dusk of this evening to try to make the town. I came down to the stream just now to find, if I could, how near we were to the river"-He broke off, made a gesture with his hand toward one of the long aisles of pine trees, and then, with a muttered "God bless you both," left me, and going a little way down the stream, stood with his back to a great tree and his eyes upon the slow, deep water.
She was coming. I watched the slight figure grow out of the dusk between the trees, and the darkness in which I had walked of late fell away. The wood that had been so gloomy was a place of sunlight and song; had red roses sprung up around me I had felt no wonder. She came softly and slowly, with bent head and hanging arms, not knowing that I was near. I went not to meet her,--it was my fancy to have her come to me still,--but when she raised her eyes and saw me I fell upon my knees.