a look of sadness.

"Well, well," he continued, "it's long past now. Why should I be angry
with the dead? Adam's wife never got the better o' that. She dropped
her head like a prairie flower in the first blast of winter, an' was
soon beside her husband.

"I waited till the little child could stump about on its own legs, an'
then I mounted my horse an' rode away with it in my arms. The only
things belongin' to poor Adam I brought with me was the iron pot an' his
long rifle. There the rifle stands in the corner. I've used it ever
since."

"And have you and Mary lived here all alone since that day?"

"Ay. I came straight here--not carin' where I went, only anxious to get
out o' the sight o' men, an' live alone wi' the child. I sought out a
dwellin' in the wildest part o' these mountains, an' fell upon this
cave, where we've lived happy enough together."

"Do you mean to say the child has never played with other children?"
inquired March, amazed at this discovery.

"Not much. I give her a run for a month or two at a time, now an' agin,
when I fall on a friendly set o' well-disposed redskins--just to keep
the right sort o' spirit in her, and comfort her a bit. But she's
always willin' to live alone wi' me."

"Then she's never learned to read?" said March sadly.

"That has she. She's got one book. It's a story about a giant an' a
fairy, an' a prince an' princess. Most 'xtraornar' stuff. I got it
from a Blood Injun, who said he picked it up in a frontier settlement
where the people had all been murdered. When we had nothin' better to
do, I used to teach her her letters out o' that book, an' the moment she
got 'em off she seemed to pick up the words, I dun' know how. She's
awful quick. She knows every word o' that story by heart. An' she's
invented heaps o' others o' the most amazin' kind. I've often thought
o' goin' to the settlements to git her some books, but--"

Dick paused abruptly, and a dark frown settled on his features, as if
the thoughts of civilised men and things revived unpleasant memories.

"The fact is," he continued somewhat bitterly, "I've been a hater of my
race. You'd scarcely believe it, lad, but you are the first man I've
ever told all this to. I can't tell why it is that I feel a likin' for
ye, boy, an' a desire to have ye stop with me. But that must not be. I
had but one friend. I must not make another to have him murdered,
mayhap, before my eyes. Yet," he added in a ge