“I suppose it isn’t quite fair to surprise you like that,” she said, with an honest girlish hand-shake, “for you see I know all about you now, and what you are doing here, and even when you were expected; and I dare say you thought we were still in England, if you remembered us at all. And we haven’t met since that day at Ashley Church when I put my foot in it,—or rather on your pet protege’s, the Indian’s: you remember Major Atherly’s tomb? And to think that all the while we didn’t know that you were a public man and a great political reformer, and had a fad like this. Why, we’d have got up meetings for you, and my father would have presided,—he’s always fond of doing these things,—and we’d have passed resolutions, and given you subscriptions, and Bibles, and flannel shirts, and revolvers—but I believe you draw the line at that. My brother was saying only the other day that you weren’t half praised enough for going in for this sort of thing when you were so rich, and needn’t care. And so that’s why you rushed away from Ashley Grange,—just to come here and work out your mission?”

His whole life, his first wild Californian dream, his English visit, the revelation of Gray Eagle, the final collapse of his old beliefs, were whirling through his brain to the music of this clear young voice. And by some cruel irony of circumstance it seemed now to even mock his later dreams of expiation as it also called back his unhappy experience of the last week.

“Have you—have you”—he stammered with a faint smile, “seen my sister?”

“Not yet,” said Lady Elfrida. “I believe she is not well and is confined to her room; you will introduce me, won’t you?” she added eagerly. “Of course, when we heard that there was an Atherly here we inquired about you; and I told them you were a relation of ours,” she went on with a half-mischievous shyness,—“you remember the de Bracys,—and they seemed surprised and rather curious. I suppose one does not talk so much about these things over here, and I dare say you have so much to occupy your mind you don’t talk of us in England.” With the quickness of a refined perception she saw a slight shade in his face, and changed the subject. “And we have had such a jolly time; we have met so many pleasant people; and they’ve all been so awfully good to us, from the officials and officers down to the plainest working-man. And all so naturally too—so different from us. I sometimes think we have to work ourselves up to be civil to strangers.” “No,” she went on gayly, in answer to his protesting gesture, and his stammered reminder of his own reception. “No. You came as a sort of kinsman, and Sir Edward knew all about you before he asked you down to the Grange—or even sent over for me from the Towers. No! you Americans take people on their ‘face value,’ as my brother Reggy says, and we always want to know what are the ‘securities.’ And then American men are more gallant, though,” she declared mischievously, “I think you are an exception in that way. Indeed,” she went on, “the more I see of your countrymen the less you seem like them. You are more like us,—more like an Englishman—indeed, more like an Englishman than most Englishmen,—I mean in the matter of reserve and all that sort of thing, you know. It’s odd,—isn’t it? Is your sister like you?”

“You shall judge for yourself,” said Peter with a gayety that was forced in proportion as his forebodings became more gloomy. Would his sister’s peculiarities—even her secret—be safe from the clear eyes of the young girl?

“I know I shall like her,” said Lady Elfrida, simply. “I mean to make friends with her before we leave, and I hope to see a great deal of her; and,” she said with a naive non sequitur, that, however, had its painful significance to Peter, “I do want you to show me some Indians—your Indians, you know YOUR friends. I’ve seen some of them, of course; I am afraid I am a little prejudiced, for I did not like them. You see my taste has to be educated, I suppose; but I thought them so foolishly vain and presuming.”

“That is their perfect childishness,” said Peter quickly. “It is not, I believe, considered a moral defect,” he added bitterly.

Lady Elfrida laughed, and yet at the same moment a look of appeal that was in itself quite as childlike shone in her blue eyes. “There, I have blundered again, I know; but I told you I have such ridiculous prejudices! And I really want to like them as you do. Only,” she laughed again, “it seems strange that YOU, of all men, should have interested yourself in people so totally different to you. But what will be the result if your efforts are successful? Will they remain a distinct race? Will you make citizens, soldiers, congressmen, governors of them? Will they intermarry with the whites? Is that a part of your plan? I hope not!”

It was a part of Peter’s sensitive excitement that even through the unconscious irony of this speech he was noticing the difference between the young English girl’s evident interest in a political problem and the utter indifference of his own countrywomen. Here was a girl scarcely out of her teens, with no pretension to being a blue stocking, with half the aplomb of an American girl of her own age, gravely considering a question of political economy. Oddly enough, it added to his other irritation, and he said almost abruptly, “Why not?”

She took the question literally and with a little youthful timidity. “But these mixed races never attain to anything, do they? I thought that was understood. But,” she added with feminine quickness, “and I suppose it’s again only a PERSONAL argument, YOU wouldn’t like your sister to have married an Indian, would you?”

The irony of the situation had reached its climax to Peter. It didn’t seem to be his voice that said, “I can answer by an argument still more personal. I have even thought myself of marrying an Indian woman.”

It seemed to him that what he said was irrevocable, but he was desperate. It seemed to him that in a moment more he would have told her his whole secret. But the young girl drew back from him with a slight start of surprise. There may have been something in the tone of his voice and in his manner that verged upon a seriousness she was never contemplating in her random talk; it may have been an uneasiness of some youthful imprudence in pressing the subject upon a man of his superiority, and that his abrupt climax was a rebuke. But it was only for a moment; her youthful buoyancy, and, above all, a certain common sense that was not incompatible to her high nature, came to her rescue. “But that,” she said with quick mischievousness, “would be a SACRIFICE taken in the interest of these people, don’t you see; and being a sacrifice, it’s no argument.”

Peter saw his mistake, but there was something so innocent and delightful in the youthful triumph of this red-lipped logician, that he was forced to smile. I have said that his smile was rare and fascinating, a concession wrung from his dark face and calm beardless lips that most people found irresistible, but it was odd, nevertheless, that Lady Elfrida now for the first time felt a sudden and not altogether unpleasant embarrassment over the very subject she had approached with such innocent fearlessness. There was a new light in her eyes, a fresher color in her cheeks as she turned her face—she knew not why—away from him. But it enabled her to see a figure approaching them from the fort. And I grieve to say that, perhaps for the first time in her life, Lady Elfrida was guilty of an affected start.

“Oh, here’s Reggy coming to look for me. I’d quite forgotten, but I’m so glad. I want you to know my brother Reggy. He was always so sorry he missed you at the Grange.”

The tall, young, good-looking brown Englishman who had sauntered up bestowed a far more critical glance upon Peter’s horse than upon Peter, but nevertheless grasped his hand heartily as his sister introduced him. Perhaps both men were equally undemonstrative, although the reserve of one was from temperament and the other from education. Nevertheless Lord Reginald remarked, with a laugh, that it was awfully jolly to be there, and that it had been a beastly shame that he was in Scotland when Atherly was at the Grange. That none of them had ever suspected till they came to the fort that he, Atherly, was one of those government chappies, and so awfully keen on Indian politics. “Friddy” had been the first to find it out, but they thought she was chaffing. At which “Friddy,” who had suddenly resolved herself into the youthfulest of schoolgirls in the presence of her brother, put her parasol like an Indian club behind her back, and still rosy, beamed admiringly upon Reggy. Then the three, Peter leading his horse, moved on towards the fort, presently meeting “Georgy,” the six-foot Guardsman cousin in extraordinary tweeds and flannel shirt; Lord Runnybroke, uncle of Friddy, middle-aged and flannel-shirted, a mighty hunter; Lady Runnybroke, in a brown duster, but with a stately head that suggested ostrich feathers; Moyler-Spence, M. P., with an eyeglass, and the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, closely attended by the always gallant Lieutenant Forsyth. Peter began to feel a nervous longing to be alone on the burning plain and the empty horizon beyond them, until he could readjust himself to these new conditions, and glanced half-wearily around him. But his eye met Friddy’s, who seemed to have evoked this gathering with a wave of her parasol, like the fairy of a pantomime, and he walked on in silence.

A day or two of unexpected pleasure passed for Peter. In these new surroundings he found he could separate Lady Elfrida from his miserable past, and the conventional restraint of Ashley Grange. Again, the revelation of her familiar name Friddy seemed to make her more accessible and human to him than her formal title, and suited the girlish simplicity that lay at the foundation of her character, of which he had seen so little before. At least so he fancied, and so excused himself; it was delightful to find her referring to him as an older friend; pleasant, indeed, to see that her family tacitly recognized it, and frequently appealed to him with the introduction, “Friddy says you can tell us,” or “You and Friddy had better arrange it between you.” Even the dreaded introduction of his sister was an agreeable surprise, owing to Lady Elfrida’s frank and sympathetic prepossession, which Jenny could not resist. In a few moments they were walking together in serious and apparently confidential conversation. For to Peter’s wonder it was the “Lady Elfrida” side of the English girl’s nature that seemed to have attracted Jenny, and not the playfulness of “Friddy,” and he was delighted to see that the young girl had assumed a grave chaperonship of the tall Mrs. Lascelles that would have done credit to Mrs. Carter or Lady Runnybroke. Had he been less serious he might have been amused, too, at the importance of his own position in the military outpost, through the arrival of the strangers. That this grave political enthusiast and civilian should be on familiar terms with a young Englishwoman of rank was at first inconceivable to the officers. And that he had never alluded to it before seemed to them still more remarkable.

Nevertheless, there was much liveliness and good fellowship at the fort. Captains and lieutenants down to the youngest “cub,” Forsyth, vied with each other to please the Englishmen, supplied them with that characteristic American humor and anecdote which it is an Englishman’s privilege to bring away with him, and were picturesquely and chivalrously devoted in their attentions to the ladies, who were pleased and amused by it, though it is to be doubted if it increased their respect for the giver, although they were more grateful for it than the average American woman. Lady Elfrida found the officers very entertaining and gallant. Accustomed to the English officer, and his somewhat bored way of treating his profession and his duties, she may have been amused at the zeal, earnestness, and enthusiasm of these youthful warriors, who aspired to appear as nothing but soldiers, when she contrasted them with her Guardsmen relatives who aspired to be everything else but that; but she kept it to herself. It was a recognized, respectable, and even superior occupation for gentlemen in England; what it might be in America,—who knows? She certainly found Peter, the civilian, more attractive, for there really was nothing English to compare him with, and she had something of the same feeling in her friendship for Jenny, except the patronage which Jenny seemed to solicit, and perhaps require, as a foreigner.

One afternoon the English guests, accompanied by a few of their hosts and a small escort, were making a shooting expedition to the vicinity of Green Spring, when Peter, plunged in his report, looked up to find his sister entering his office. Her face was pale, and there was something in her expression which reawakened his old anxiety. Nevertheless he smiled, and said gently:—

“Why are you not enjoying yourself with the others?”

“I have a headache,” she said, languidly, “but,” lifting her eyes suddenly to his, “why are YOU not? You are their good friend, you know,—even their relation.”

“No more than you are,” he returned, with affected gayety. “But look at the report—it is only half finished! I have already been shirking it for them.”

“You mustn’t let your devotion to the Indians keep you from your older friends,” said Mrs. Lascelles, with an odd laugh. “But you never told me about these people before, Peter; tell me now. They were very kind to you, weren’t they, on account of your relationship?”

“Entirely on account of that,” said Peter, with a sudden bitterness he could not repress. “But they are very pleasant,” he added quickly, “and very simple and unaffected, in spite of their rank; perhaps I ought to say, BECAUSE of it.”

“You mean they are kind to us because they feel themselves superior,—just as you are kind to the Indians, Peter.”

“I am afraid they have no such sense of political equality towards us, Jenny, as impels me to be just to the Indian,” he said with affected lightness. “But Lady Elfrida sympathizes with the Indians—very much.”

“She!” The emphasis which his sister put upon the personal pronoun was unmistakable, but Peter ignored it, and so apparently did she, as she said the next moment in a different voice, “She’s very pretty, don’t you think?”

“Very,” said Peter coldly.

There was a long pause. Peter slightly fingered one of the sheets of his delayed report on his desk. His sister looked up. “I’m afraid I’m as bad as Lady Elfrida in keeping you from your Indians; but I had something to say to you. No matter, another time will do when you’re not so busy.”

“Please go on now,” said Peter, with affected unconcern, yet with a feeling of uneasiness creeping over him.

“It was only this,” said Jenny, seating herself with her elbow on the desk and her chin in a cup-like hollow of her hand, “did you ever think that in the interests of these poor Indians, you know, purely for the sake of your belief in them, and just to show that you were above vulgar prejudices,—did you ever think you could marry one of them?”

Two thoughts flashed quickly on Peter’s mind,—first, that Lady Elfrida had repeated something of their conversation to his sister; secondly, that some one had told her of Little Daybreak. Each was equally disturbing. But he recovered himself quickly and said, “I might if I thought it was required. But even a sacrifice is not always an example.”

“Then you think it would be a sacrifice?” she said, slowly raising her dark eyes to his.

“If I did something against received opinion, against precedent, and for aught I know against even the prejudices of those I wish to serve, however lofty my intention was and however great the benefit to them in the end, it would still be a sacrifice in the present.” He saw his own miserable logic and affected didactics, but he went on lightly, “But why do you ask such a question? You haven’t any one in your mind for me, have you?”

She had risen thoughtfully and was moving towards the door. Suddenly she turned with a quick, odd vivacity: “Perhaps I had. Oh, Peter, there was such a lovely little squaw I saw the last time I was at Oak Bottom! She was no darker than I am, but so beautiful. Even in her little cotton gown and blanket, with only a string of beads around her throat, she was as pretty as any one here. And I dare say she could be educated and appear as well as any white woman. I should so like to have you see her. I would have tried to bring her to the fort, but the braves are very jealous of their wives or daughters seeing white men, you know, and I was afraid of the colonel.”

She had spoken volubly and with a strange excitement, but even at the moment her face changed again, and as she left the office, with a quick laugh and parting gesture, there were tears in her eyes.

Accustomed to her moods and caprices, Peter thought little of the intrusion, relieved as he was of his first fears. She had come to him from loneliness and curiosity, and, perhaps, he thought with a sad smile, from a little sisterly jealousy of the young girl who had evinced such an interest in him, and had known him before. He took up his pen and continued the interrupted paragraph of his report.

“I am satisfied that much of the mischievous and extravagant prejudice against the half breed and all alliances of the white and red races springs from the ignorance of the frontiersman and his hasty generalization of facts. There is no doubt that an intermixture of blood brings out purely superficial contrasts the more strongly, and that against the civilizing habits and even costumes of the half breed, certain Indian defects appear the more strongly as in the case of the color line of the quadroon and octoroon, but it must not be forgotten that these are only the contrasts of specific improvement, and the inference that the borrowed defects of a half breed exceed the original defects of the full-blooded aborigine is utterly illogical.” He stopped suddenly and laid down his pen with a heightened color; the bugle had blown, the guard was turning out to receive the commandant and his returning party, among whom was Friddy.

Through the illusions of depression and distance the “sink” of Butternut Creek seemed only an incrustation of blackish moss on the dull gray plain. It was not until one approached within half a mile of it that it resolved itself into a copse of butternut-trees sunken below the distant levels. Here once, in geological story, the waters of Butternut Creek, despairing of ever crossing the leagues of arid waste before them, had suddenly disappeared in the providential interposition of an area of looser soil, and so given up the effort and the ghost forever, their grave being marked by the butternut copse, chance-sown by bird or beast in the saturated ground. In Indian legend the “sink” commemorated the equally providential escape of a great tribe who, surrounded by enemies, appealed to the Great Spirit for protection, and was promptly conveyed by subterraneous passages to the banks of the Great River a hundred miles away. Its outer edges were already invaded by the dust of the plain, but within them ran cool recesses, a few openings, and the ashes of some long-forgotten camp-fires. To-day its sombre shadows were relieved by bright colored dresses, the jackets of the drivers of a large sutler’s wagon, whose white canvas head marked the entrance of the copse, and all the paraphernalia of a picnic. It was a party gotten up by the foreign guests to the ladies of the fort, prepared and arranged by the active Lady Elfrida, assisted by the only gentleman of the party, Peter Atherly, who, from his acquaintance with the locality, was allowed to accompany them. The other gentlemen, who with a large party of officers and soldiers were shooting in the vicinity, were sufficiently near for protection. They would rejoin the ladies later.

“It does not seem in the least as if we were miles away from any town or habitation,” said Lady Runnybroke, complacently seating herself on a stump, “and I shouldn’t be surprised to see a church tower through those trees. It’s very like the hazel copse at Longworth, you know. Not at all what I expected.”

“For the matter of that neither are the Indians,” said the Hon. Evelyn Rayne. “Did you ever see such grotesque creatures in their cast-off boots and trousers? They’re no better than gypsies. I wonder what Mr. Atherly can find in them.”

“And he a rich man, too,—they say he’s got a mine in California worth a million,—to take up a craze like this,” added the lively Mrs. Captain Joyce, “that’s what gets me! You know,” she went on confidentially, “that cranks and reformers are always poor—it’s quite natural; but I don’t see what he, a rich man, expects to make by his reforms, I’m sure.”

“He’ll get over it in time,” said the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, “they all do. At least he expects to get the reforms he wants in a year, and then he’s coming over to England again.”

“Indeed, how very nice,” responded Lady Runnybroke quickly. “Did he say so?”

“No. But Friddy says he is.”

The two officers’ wives glanced at each other. Lady Runnybroke put up her eyeglass in default of ostrich feathers, and said didactically, “I’m sure Mr. Atherly is very much in earnest, and sincerely devoted to his work. And in a man of his wealth and position here it’s most estimable. My dear,” she said, getting up and moving towards Mrs. Lascelles, “we were just saying how good and unselfish your brother was in his work for these poor people.”

But Jenny Lascelles must have been in one of those abstracted moods which so troubled her husband, for she seemed to be staring straight before her into the recesses of the wood. In her there was a certain resemblance to the attitude of a listening animal.

“I wish Mr. Atherly was a little more unselfish to US poor people,” said the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, “for he and Friddy have been nearly an hour looking for a place to spread our luncheon baskets. I wish they’d leave the future of the brown races to look after itself and look a little more after us. I’m famished.”

“I fancy they find it difficult to select a clear space for so large a party as we will be when the gentlemen come in,” returned Lady Runnybroke, glancing in the direction of Jenny’s abstracted eyes.

“I suppose you must feel like chicken and salad, too, Lady Runnybroke,” suggested Mrs. Captain Joyce.

“I don’t think I quite know HOW chicken and salad feel, dear,” said Lady Runnybroke with a puzzled air, “but if that’s one of your husband’s delightful American stories, do tell us. I never CAN get Runnybroke to tell me any, although he roars over them all. And I dare say he gets them all wrong. But look, here comes our luncheon.”

Peter and Lady Elfrida were advancing towards them. The scrutiny of a dozen pairs of eyes—wondering, mischievous, critical, impertinent, or resentful—would have been a trying ordeal to any errant couple; but there was little if any change in Peter’s grave and gentle demeanor, albeit his dark eyes were shining with a peculiar light, and Lady Elfrida had only the animation, color, and slight excitability that became the responsible leader of the little party. They neither apologized or alluded to their delay. They had selected a spot on the other side of the copse, and the baskets could be sent around by the wagon; they had seen a slight haze on the plain towards the east which betokened the vicinity of the rest of the party, and they were about to propose that as the gentlemen were so near they had better postpone the picnic until they came up. Lady Runnybroke smiled affably; the only thing she had noticed was that Lady Elfrida in joining them had gone directly to the side of the abstracted Jenny, and placed her arm around her waist. At which Lady Runnybroke airily joined them.

The surmises of Peter and Friddy appeared to be correct. The transfer of the provisions and the party to the other side was barely concluded before they could see the gentlemen coming; they were riding a little more rapidly than when they had set out, and were arriving fully three hours before their time. They burst upon the ladies a little boisterously but gayly; they had had a glorious time, but little sport; they had hurried back to join the ladies so as to be able to return with them betimes. They were ravenously hungry; they wanted to fall to at once. Only the officers’ wives noticed that the two files of troopers DID NOT DISMOUNT, but filed slowly before the entrance to the woods. Lady Elfrida as hostess was prettily distressed by it, but was told by Captain Joyce that it was “against rules,” and that she could “feed” them at the fort. The officers’ wives put a few questions in whispers, and were promptly frowned down. Nevertheless, the luncheon was a successful festivity: the gentlemen were loud in the praises of their gracious hostess; the delicacies she had provided by express from distant stations, and much that was distinctly English and despoiled from her own stores, were gratefully appreciated by the officers of a remote frontier garrison. Lady Elfrida’s health was toasted by the gallant colonel in a speech that was the soul of chivalry. Lord Runnybroke responded, perhaps without the American abandon, but with the steady conscientiousness of an hereditary legislator, but the M. P. summed up a slightly exaggerated but well meaning episode by pointing out that it was on occasions like this that the two nations showed their common ancestry by standing side by side. Only one thing troubled the rosy, excited, but still clear-headed Friddy; the plates were whisked away like magic after each delicacy, by the military servants, and vanished; the tables were in the same mysterious way cleared as rapidly as they were set, and any attempt to recall a dish was met by the declaration that it was already packed away in the wagon. As they at last rose from the actually empty board, and saw even the tables disappear, Lady Elfrida plaintively protested that she felt as if she had been presiding over an Arabian Nights entertainment, served by genii, and she knew that they would all awaken hungry when they were well on their way back. Nevertheless, in spite of this expedition, the officers lounged about smoking until every trace of the festivity had vanished. Reggy found himself standing near Peter. “You know,” he said, confidentially, “I don’t think the colonel has a very high opinion of your pets,—the Indians. And, by Jove, if the ‘friendlies’ are as nasty towards you as they were to us this morning, I wonder what you call the ‘hostile’ tribes.”

“Did you have any difficulty with them?” said Peter quickly.

“No, not exactly, don’t you know—we were too many, I fancy; but, by Jove, the beggars whenever we met them,—and we met one or two gypsy bands of them,—you know, they seemed to look upon us as TRESPASSERS, don’t you know.”

“And you were, in point of fact,” said Peter, smiling grimly.

“Oh, I say, come now!” said Reggy, opening his eyes. After a moment he laughed. “Oh, yes, I see—of course, looking at it from their point of view. By Jove, I dare say the beggars were right, you know; all the same,—don’t you see,—YOUR people were poaching too.”

“So we were,” said Peter gravely.

But here, at a word from the major, the whole party debouched from the woods. Everything appeared to be awaiting them,—the large covered carryall for the guests, and the two saddle horses for Mrs. Lascelles and Lady Elfrida, who had ridden there together. Peter, also mounted, accompanied the carryall with two of the officers; the troopers and wagons brought up the rear.

It was very hot, with little or no wind. On this part of the plain the dust seemed lighter and finer, and rose with the wheels of the carryall and the horses of the escort, trailing a white cloud over the cavalcade like the smoke of an engine over a train. It was with difficulty the troopers could be kept from opening out on both sides of the highway to escape it. The whole atmosphere seemed charged with it; it even appeared in a long bank to the right, rising and obscuring the declining sun. But they were already within sight of the fort and the little copse beside it. Then trooper Cassidy trotted up to the colonel, who was riding in a dusty cloud beside the carryall, “Captain Fleetwood’s compliments, sorr, and there are two sthragglers,—Mrs. Lascelles and the English lady.” He pointed to the rapidly flying figures of Jenny and Friddy making towards the wood.

The colonel made a movement of impatience. “Tell Mr. Forsyth to bring them back at once,” he said.

But here a feminine chorus of excuses and expostulations rose from the carryall. “It’s only Mrs. Lascelles going to show Friddy where the squaws and children bathe,” said Lady Runnybroke, “it’s near the fort, and they’ll be there as quick as we shall.”

“One moment, colonel,” said Peter, with mortified concern. “It’s another folly of my sister’s! pray let me take it upon myself to bring them back.”

“Very well, but see you don’t linger, and,” turning to Cassidy, as Peter galloped away, he added, “you follow him.”

Peter kept the figures of the two women in view, but presently saw them disappear in the wood. He had no fear for their safety, but he was indignant at this last untimely caprice of his sister. He knew the idea had originated with her, and that the officers knew it, and yet she had made Lady Elfrida bear an equal share of the blame. He reached the edge of the copse, entered the first opening, but he had scarcely plunged into its shadow and shut out the plain behind him before he felt his arms and knees quickly seized from behind. So sudden and unexpected was the attack that he first thought his horse had stumbled against a coil of wild grapevine and was entangled, but the next moment he smelled the rank characteristic odor and saw the brown limbs of the Indian who had leaped on his crupper, while another rose at his horse’s head. Then a warning voice in his ear said in the native tongue:—