een my life for years," was the quiet reply. "I hardly know
how to eat at a table."

"Have you no home?" the Colonel asked. "Is your father not living?"

"Yes, I believe he is living, but I have not seen him for years."

"And why not?"

To this question Dane made no reply. He sat very still, looking down
through the trees into the valley below. The Colonel at first became
impatient, then angry.

"Look here, young man," he began, "if you are to have my daughter, I
must know something more about who you are, and where you have come
from. Why do you not wish to tell me about your father?"

Had any one else spoken in such a peremptory manner he would soon have
learned his mistake. As it was, Dane found it difficult to control
himself.

"I cannot tell you now," he quietly replied. "I must explain nothing,
so please do not press me further."

The Colonel was now thoroughly aroused. His fighting blood was
stirred, and he turned angrily upon his companion.

"Are you ashamed of your father?" he roared. "Who is he? and what has
he done that you won't tell me about him? Surely------" He paused
abruptly, while a look of consternation leaped into his eyes. He
reached out and clutched Dane by the arm. "Tell me," he demanded, in a
voice that was but a hoarse whisper, "is your father an Indian? Speak,
quick. I must know the truth."

With a gesture of impatience, Dane threw aside the clutching hand, and
sprang to his feet, his eyes ablaze with anger.

"No, my father is not an Indian," he cried.

He was on the point of saying more, but restraining himself, he picked
up his gun and slipped swiftly away among the trees. Down into the
valley he moved, hardly caring where he went. For the second time in
his life he was afraid of himself; for the second time he fled from an
angry grey-haired man, not through fear of what might happen to
himself, but what he might do. His soul was stirred within him, and
the blood surged madly through his veins. But now, as on that other
occasion, he was saved by a mighty influence from being one with the
beasts of the forest, and that influence was the prevailing power of
love.

At length he stopped on the edge of a wild meadow, and threw himself
down upon a bed of moss under a fir tree. He remembered how he had
done the same five years before when he had fled from the face of the
man from whose loins he had sprung. It was love then which had
restrained him and held his h