All-Story Weekly, Vol. 112, No. 1 — page 32: what you’re looking at

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92 should have served it to her in a wooden spoon. The fact was as strange as that voice she had heard. Then she began to recol- lect. This was Florida. She must have been ill. She raised her eyes. She gazed with wonder at the face above her own —all eyes, at first, but the eyes were kind; strange eyes, as strange as the eyes of a Russian wolfhound she had once owned, with the same sort of speechless mystery looking out from the depths of them, -but not eyes to make her afraid. “You're a Seminole,” she announced. ‘Yes, Miss Sangree.” slowly, but perfectly pronounced. ‘‘'Where did you hear my name?” “ Blind Heron—him tell me.” © The words meant nothing to her, except as a sort of added assurance that her experi- ence was rational, that her nightmare was past. ‘Where is my father?”’ There was a long pause. —him come.” ‘What is your name?”’ She could see the thought flickering in the dark eyes. It was almost as if she could follow the process of thought in the brain back of the eyes—first the thought in a foreign speech, then this slowly and labo- riously translated. ‘Blue Otter,” the owner of the eyes replied. ‘Thank you, Blue Otter. —you are very—kind.” And sleep had once more stolen over Muriel Sangree, but this time with no night- mare in it. ‘“ Me think so You are very CHAPTER XIII. THESE TWAIN. HEN she awoke the next time it was dark. It was night, but there was a whiteness about her, and beyond this whiteness there was a flicker of flame. She put out her hand and: found that the whiteness was a mosquito-bar. She raised this and saw a camp-fire. Seated at the side of the fire, gazing into it, was the Indian whom she knew to be Blue Otter. The answer came . ALL-STORY WEEKLY. The sight of him gave her an assurance of safety. , She felt weak. She was still under the spell of a lethargy. But apart from this she experienced a marvelous sense of well- being. She was free from pain. She felt a gust of gratitude for the silence, for the shadowy forest, for that motionless red thinker ever there. What had happened? Little by little she reconstructed the fragments of her recent history. until she saw it whole, up to the time of her escape from the camp where the men in the auto- mobile had taken her, and for a little while after that. By this time she was sitting up, a little giddy, but silent. She examined the strange dress she wore, the strange bed upon which she lay. She lifted the muslin bar on the other side. About this bed of hers the forest and the night hung their scented purple curtains with a perfect privacy. | What had happened to. the world?—the old world she had known? It was as if this world had died—or she had died—and that a new order of creation had come into being. She swam in silence. Here was a peace such as she had never known. She rested for-a while, satisfied with the soft darkness and silence as with something she had always craved but had never known before. Not even thought of her father disturbed her very much. He had been a man always absorbed in his own affairs. And who was Lieutenant Lathrop? He was a mere fading figment of the world that was gone. But she felt that primal need of all newly created things. ‘“‘ Blue Otter,” she called softly. _ He was almost instantly at her side. His face was grave and kind. His wide eyes glowed down at her as mysterious and tolerant as stars. ‘““T am here.” “T am hungry,” she said. She saw a sm.e that was rather of the eyes than the lips. “ Hinthler-ka!’’—and she needed no in- terpreter to tell her that it was an exclama- tion of satisfaction. He was back from the fire with his kettle COmiIclooOo SS C©