All-Story Weekly, Vol. 112, No. 1 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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26 There fell a brief period of thought be- tween them. It was as if the spirit of the woods had stepped out to confrent them, and it was ag if this spirit were a figure of naked, gleaming Truth. The Truth spoke: “You are man and woman, alone in the world, as the world was in the beginnimeg. Even as Adam and Eve were, so are you.” A little while ago, when Muriel Sangree looked at this man, she had thought of him only as a savage. She had remarked his savage dress. She had remarked the bar- barous plaits of his long hair. But sud- denly she was asking herself: ‘“ Am I any less savage than he is?” She was clad in the long shirt he had given her. She had girdled this about her waist with a strand of bark rope she had found on the platform of the lodge. Her feet were bare. She had just feasted on wild meat and wild fruit and found them good. Whispers!—nothing but whispers yet to the souls of either of them. But even then the tall woods were plotting to make these whispers a command. CHAPTER XV. THE BLIND TRAIL. HE thought she could walk, and Blue Otter was willing to have her try. She arose from the log at the side of the fire where she had eaten her savage break- fast. “Now we will go,” she said. “ Hinthlo!” “Little by little,” she elaborated, for already she saw how feeble she still was. “Little by little,” he agreed. She started across the clearing. She told herself that she would overcome this weak- ness and drowsiness that was pressing upon her. But when one has been through days of starvation and exhausting effort, as she had been, this coupled to nightmare and fever, the recovery is apt to be slow. As she reached the edge of the clearing she swayed. | ‘“‘T am afraid,” she smiled, “ I'll have to rest again—so soon—after eating.” ALL-STORY WEEKLY, She offered no word or movement of protest as Blue Otter stooped a little and opened his arm. She put her arm about his neck and -he lifted her lightly, seriously, He carried her back to the lodge. Now she realized how dependent she was on him! ? ‘There was no smile on Blue Otter’s face— nothing but expression of brooding thought- fulness, the look of a man who has problems to solve—as he placed her again on fier couch, | What these problems were he was be- ginning in greater and greater detail to perceive. All of them had not been stated by Blind Heron. Blind“Heron had merely spoken from the standpoint of the red peo- ple. And what about the white? That there were white people in the neighbor- hood, Blue Otter had now been aware for upward of twenty-four hours—even before he scented that taint in the breeze. Yet he hesitated to mention this to the girl. From what she had said in her delirium he knew that there were certain of her people whom she feared. This couch of moss and palmetto on its framework of split cypress-logs was luxury to Muriel Sangree. She was pervaded by the luxury of convalescence. She had just eaten. Now she could rest. She was clean and warm. Not only that animal selfishness which is as of the breath of the jungle. She subsided with her eyes half-closed and looked at the strange youth who had been sent to her aid by the spirit of the jungle, and she was forgetful of all else. He was clean. He was efficient. He was possessed of a primitive beauty. He pos- sessed superb physical vigor. He fitted in perfectly with the rest of the picture. Here was the glistening and yet shadowy jungle, clean but strong-scented; ‘cool but tropic, like the interior of a hot-house; a place of luxury, and yet haunted by the lurking known and unknown forms of sud- den death. What else mattered but safety, comfort, and then the continuance of the race? ‘“T almost wish,” she said, ‘‘ that I had been born an Indian.” His sober smile said: “I almost wish that I had been born a white man.” comiclboolk Cc C©