She put out her
hand to Singing Arrow, and the Indian took it, and they walked together
back into the trees. They could not understand each other, and I
wondered what they would do. But later I heard them laughing.
Well, the woman was destined to surprise me, and she had done it again.
I had thought her too finely woven and strong of fibre to be easily
emotional. It was some hours before it came to me that she had not
been with another woman since the night the savages had found her in
the Connecticut farmhouse. All the world had been a foe to be feared
and parried except myself, and I had been a despot. Perhaps she did
not know herself. Perhaps she would welcome Benjamin Starling after
all. No matter what her horror of him, she could at least be natural
with him, if only to show her scorn.
CHAPTER XVI
THE STORM
We embarked in good season that morning and followed the line of the
peninsula in its slant to the southwest. It was a pleasant shore,
limestone-scarped and tree-bannered, and we paddled so near to it that
the squirrels scolded at us, and a daisy-spotted fawn crashed through
the young cedars and stared at us with shy eyes. The birds were
singing and calling like maids in a hayfield, and the woman sat with
her back straight and her eyes laughing, and imitated each new note as
the breeze brought it to her.
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