e saw her, and the melancholy features were
transfigured with joy. She stood hesitating a moment like some shy
creature of the forest, then sprang eagerly forward to meet him.

"I knew you were coming!" she cried rapturously. "I felt your approach
long before I heard your footsteps."

"How is that?" said Cecil, holding her hands and looking down into her
radiant eyes. Something of the wild Indian mysticism flashed in them
as she replied:

"I cannot tell; I knew it! my spirit heard your steps long before my
ears could catch the sound. But oh!" she cried in sudden transition,
her face darkening, her eyes growing large and pathetic, "why did you
not come yesterday? I so longed for you and you did not come. It
seemed as if the day would never end. I thought that perhaps the
Indians had killed you; I thought it might be that I should never see
you again; and all the world grew dark as night, I felt so terribly
alone. Promise me you will never stay away so long again!"

"Never!" exclaimed Cecil, on the impulse of the moment. An instant
later he would have given the world to have recalled the word.

"I am so glad!" she cried, clapping her hands in girlish delight; and
he could not pain her by an explanation.

"After a while I will tell her how impossible it is for me to come
again," he thought. "I cannot tell her now." And he seized upon every
word and look of the lovely unconscious girl, with a hunger of heart
born of eight years' starvation.

"Now you must come with me to my lodge; you are my guest, and I shall
entertain you. I want you to look at my treasures."

Cecil went with her, wondering if they would meet Multnomah at her
lodge, and if so, what he would say. He felt that he was doing wrong,
yet so sweet was it to be in her presence, so much did her beauty fill
the mighty craving of his nature, that it was not possible for him to
tear himself away.

Some fifteen minutes' walk brought them to Wallulah's lodge. It was a
large building, made of bark set upright against a frame-work of
poles, and roofed with cedar boards,--in its external appearance like
all Willamette lodges. Several Indian girls, neatly dressed and of
more than ordinary intelligence, were busied in various employments
about the yard. They looked in surprise at the white man and their
mistress, but said nothing. The two entered the lodge. Cecil muttered
an exclamation of amazement as he crossed the threshold.

The interior was a glow of color,