and he looked:
"Who are you; and where is your home, beautiful being, so strangely and
so unexpectedly met?"

An arrow was shot from the bow to gratify a request. She followed the
quivering thing with her eye, as it sped like a shaft of light to its
destined mark. To retrieve it she walked with the youth to where, fixed
in a bale of cotton, it trembled, some hundred yards away. Slowly she
returned by the youth's side, and drooped her head, listening to the
wild mountain adventures he was telling--the chase of the elk, the
antelope, and the wild buffalo; the hazardous ride through the wild
prairies, expanding away in the distance to kiss the horizon; the
stealthy wiles of the revengeful savage; the fierce fight of savage
men; the race for very life, when the foe followed; and the bivouac
upon the prairie's breast, with the weary horse sleeping and resting by
his side. Will he ever forget the speaking of the beaming features of
that beautiful creature, when she lifted her head and looked into his
face? A frown darkened the matron's features as her _eleve_ returned to
the curious group which was listening to the narrative of the older of
the two strangers. It said: "What did you leave me for? Why this
indiscretion?" Ah! how often old women forget they were once young!

The steamer is coming. She is here; and the trappings of the wanderers
are on board. The young wild man stands alone upon the upper deck. His
eyes pierce to where stands the sylph he leaves with reluctance. She is
looking at him. He lifts his cap and bows farewell. She waves her
kerchief in return. The steamer speeds away. They are parted. Has that
brief interview left an impression upon those two young hearts to
endure beyond a day? Will she dream of the dark beard, curled and
flowing--of the darker eye which looked and spoke? and will the wild
story of the western wilderness come in the silent darkness of her
chamber, and make her nestle closer to her pillow? Will her heart ask:
"Shall I ever meet him again?"

He has gone away; a waif about the land--a feather on the world, driven
about, as destiny impels, without fixed intentions; yet buoyant with
the ardor of youth, and happy in the excess of youthful hopes, dreamy
and wild adventures. He has tasted the savage love of woods and wilds,
and the nature--which was born thousands of years ere the teachings of
civilization had tamed the wild man into an educated, home-loving
being--revives, and the two str