Part 16 (1/2)

CELIA THAXTER

Cecil walked listlessly on through the wood He orn out by the day's efforts, though it was as yet but theof exhaustion in his lungs, a fluttering pain about his heart, the result of years of over-work upon a delicate fra of physical weakness caive way ere his as done Nor was this all In these tiain the faces of his friends, to have again the sweet graceful things of the life that was forever closed to him, rushed over him in a bitter flood

The trail led him to the bank of the Columbia, some distance below the enca majestically on, the white snow-peaks, the canyons deep in the shadows of afternoon, the dense forest beyond the river extending away to the unknown and silent North as far as his eyes could reach

”It is wonderful, wonderful!” he thought ”But I would give it all to look upon one white face”

So , he passed on down the bank of the river He was now perhaps two ly in complete solitude After a little the path turned away from the beach and led toward the interior As he entered the woodland he came upon several Indian sentinels who lay, bow in hand, beside the path They sprang up, as if to intercept his passage; but seeing that it was the white _shaman_ whom Multnoreat sache heard from souarded; he had forgotten why So absorbed was he in his gloomy reflections that he did not stop to question the sentinels, but went on, not thinking that he round

By and by the path eed from the wood upon a little prairie; the cottonwoods shut out the Indians froolden on the littlehow like it was to soain the shade of trees fell over the path He looked up, histhat made his heart stand still For there, not far fro drapery, the dress of a white woman In Massachusetts a wo Cecil would have noticed Now, so long accustoarraceful woven cloth sent through hier eyes drinking in the welco what he saw

She had not yet observed him The profile of her half-averted face was very sweet and fe black ringlets to the shoulders He was in the presence of a young and beautiful wolance; noted, too, the drooping lashes, the wistful lines about the lips, the mournful expression that shadowed the beauty of her face

Who was she? Where could she have co footsteps and turned toward him Absolute bewilderht and joy Her dark, sad eyes sparkled She was radiant, as if so-looked for happiness had co out her hands in ie he did not understand, but which he felt could not be Indian, so refined and pleasing were the tones

He answered he knew not what, in his own tongue, and she paused perplexed Then he spoke again, this time in Willauage?” she replied in the saue, but with a treht you were of e But you _are_ white, like her people?”

She had given hi down into her eager, lifted face, where a great hope and a great doubt in ether

”I am a white man I came from a land far to the East But who are you, and how came you here?”

She did not seem to hear the last words, only the first

”No, no,” she protested eagerly, ”you came not from the East but from the West, the land across the sea that my mother came from in the shi+p that recked” And she withdrew one hand and pointed toward the wooded range beyond which lay the Pacific

He shook his head ”No, there are white people in those lands too, but I never saw the to surmise that she must be an Asiatic She dreay the hand that he still held in his, and her eyes filled with tears

”I thought you were one ofof an exceeding disappointently

”The daughter of Multnomah”

Cecil remembered nohat he had heard of the dead white wife of Multno the tribes, was to be given to Snoqualmie He noticed, too, for the first tiht faded from it and it settled back into the despondent look habitual to it

All that was chivalrous in his nature went out to the fair young creature; all his being responded to the sting of her disappointment

”I am not what you hoped I was, but your face is like the face of the women of my own land Shall we not be friends?”