“My beautiful Eden! I love you! My valley and mountains! It is too bad that you be redeemed from the wild, once the home of my vanishing race and where the buffalo roamed at will. Where hunting was a joy to the tribesmen, who communed with the Great Spirit. I would that I had lived in those days—that the blood of the white man had not condemned me an outcast among my own people.”
Cogewea sank down, burying her face in her hands. A half suppressed sob burst from her lips, convulsing her slender form. In silence she remained as the evening shadows deepened about her. She had often stood upon this butte at the close of the summer day in dreamy sadness, but never had she felt so lonely and forsaken. The form and face of the white man constantly intruded upon her vision. She had thought to ask Densmore to ride with her, but some impelling influence had deterred her. Did she really love him? Did he love her? The warning of the aged grandmother was troubling, and in sheer desperation she had fled to the solitude of her old haunt, the wild, lonely butte. Her sobbing was broken by:
“What is it, Sis? What troubles my little squaw?”
Startled, the girl looked up. Jim was standing over her tenderness depicted in his usually stern face. She did not answer and he repeated, his hand mechanically hovering about his pistol’s grip.
“Tell me! Cogewea! what is wrong. Has that there tender—”
“Nothing! nothing Jim! only you have spoiled my evening hour.”
There was a piteous attempt at a smile and her eyes, tear-dimmed, turned from his and gazed out over the now shadowy valley. Jim, touched by her visible emotion, stood irresolute for a moment and then asked simply:
“How have I spoiled it, Sis?”
“By coming here when I wanted to be alone. Why did you come?”
“I came ’cause you have no time for me at home, only for that there white man. I want a chance to talk to you without someone buttin’ in on me. I saw you crossin’ the flat and I was lonesome for you. I most had to come. Do you really care ’cause I spoiled your evenin’?”
“Not exactly since you are here,” she murmured faintly.
“Now, Sis! if you care, why, I’ll go away.”
These last words came more as a plea. They touched the heart of the sensitive girl. She turned to him with a smile of old.
“No Jim! I do not want you to go. Stay and ride home with me. I was just kidding you. I would not hurt my big brother’s feelings for the world. I think too much of him.”
“Will you ever care for me more than you would a brother?”
“That is the most that any woman could care for a man. What more do you want of me?”
Her light bantering made him desperate and he blundered:
“Cogewea! Sis, I want you! I want you to marry me and you must not say no. Tell me that you will. I cannot take no!”
The girl looked up in surprise. This was the last thing that she had expected from the man facing her and asking for her hand in his own rough way. This man she loved only as some big, kind protecting brother. She sympathized with him for the blood ties of the breed, and here he had misunderstood her.
“Well, I be doggoned Jim!” she at length exclaimed in evident embarrassment. “I hadn’t the least idea that you cared for me in that light. You sure have surprised me! I always thought that it was only a brother’s love you had for me. I am sorry that I have nothing more than a sister’s love to offer you in return for your devotion. I love you as a big brother and no more.”
“Brother hell! Then who in blazes do you love?”
“No one that I know of.”
“Are you sure Sis? Do you mean it good?”
She did not answer and manlike, he took it for granted that she was not sure of her own mind. His soul was tortured with racking uncertainty. He was like an animal at bay—was going to fight for what he regarded his own. He questioned eagerly.
“Then you—you don’t care for that there feller—you don’t love that there tenderfoot guy?”
“Why! I—I—like him.”
“You do! eh! Have you only a sister’s love for that there guy too?”
Cogewea’s mind was busy; she was fighting for time. She knew this man of the range too well to trifle with his sincere heart.
“No—no!” she said slowly, “I do not love him with—”
She hesitated in utter confusion. The steady gaze of the Westerner disconcerted her and her eyes again sought the refuge of the gloaming.
“And if that there feller asks you to marry him,” continued Jim in a voice pathetic in its earnestness, “what would you do about it?”
“Is it information that you are after?” she asked with a degree of impatience.
“Sis! I just want to know if I will ever have a chance—a show—some of these days; or some time?”
“Listen! Jim! let me tell you. He will never seek my hand. I know this, because of my blood. He is of a very proud family and I am a breed. You understand the situation. Of course I do not consider myself inferior to
