It must not be assumed that when Waldo Emerson returned to face the hairy brute who threatened to separate him from his newfound companion that by a miracle he had been transformed from a hare into a lion—far from it.
Now that he had a moment in which to lie quite still and speculate upon the adventures of the past hour, the reaction came, and Waldo Emerson thanked the kindly night that obscured from the eyes of the girl the pitiable spectacle of his palsied limbs and trembling lip.
Once again he was in a blue funk, with shattered nerves that begged to cry aloud in the extremity of their terror.
It was not warm in the damp canyon, through which the wind swept over the cold water, so that to Waldo’s mental anguish was added the physical discomfort of cold and wet. He was indeed a miserable figure as he lay huddled upon the sward, praying for the rising of the sun, yet dreading the daylight that might reveal him to his enemies.
But at last dawn came, and after a fitful sleep Waldo awoke to find himself in a snug and beautiful little paradise hemmed in by the high cliffs that flanked the river, upon a sloping grassy shore that was all but invisible except from a short stretch of cliff-top upon the farther side of the stream.
A few feet from him lay the girl.
She was still asleep. Her head was pillowed upon one firm, brown arm. Her soft black hair fell in disorder across one cheek and over the other arm, to spread gracefully upon the green grass about her.
As Waldo looked he saw that she was very comely. Never before had he seen a girl just like her. His young women friends had been rather prim and plain, with long, white faces and thin lips that scarcely ever dared to smile and scorned to unbend in plebeian laughter.
This girl’s lips seemed to have been made for laughing—and for something else, though at the time it is only fair to Waldo to say that he did not realize the full possibilities that they presented.
As his eyes wandered along the lines of her young body his Puritanical training brought a hot flush of embarrassment to his face, and he deliberately turned his back upon her.
It was indeed awful to Waldo Emerson to contemplate, to say the least, the unconventional position into which fate had forced him. The longer he pondered it the redder he became. It was frightful—what would his mother say when she heard of it?
What would this girl’s mother say? But, more to the point, and—horrible thought—what would her father or her brothers do to Waldo if they found them thus together—and she with only a scanty garment of skin about her waist—a garment which reached scarcely below her knees at any point, and at others terminated far above?
Waldo was chagrined. He could not understand what the girl could be thinking of, for in other respects she seemed quite nice, and he was sure that the great eyes of her reflected only goodness and innocence.
While he sat thus, thinking, the girl awoke and with a merry laugh addressed him.
“Good morning,” said Waldo quite severely.
He wished that he could speak her language, so that he could convey to her a suggestion of the disapprobation which he felt for her attire.
He was on the point of attempting it by signs, when she rose, lithe and graceful as a tigress, and walked to the river’s brim. With a deft movement of her fingers she loosed the thong that held her single garment, and as it fell to the ground Waldo, with a horrified gasp, turned upon his face, burying his tightly closed eyes in his hands.
Then the girl dived into the cool waters for her matutinal bath.
She called to him several times to join her, but Waldo could not look at the spectacle presented; his soul was scandalized.
It was some time after she emerged from the river before he dared risk a hesitating glance. With a sigh of relief he saw that she had donned her single garment, and thereafter he could look at her unashamed when she was thus clothed. He felt that by comparison it constituted a most modest gown.
Together they strolled along the river’s edge, gathering such fruits and roots as the girl knew to be edible. Waldo Emerson gathered those she indicated—with all his learning he found it necessary to depend upon the untutored mind of this little primitive maiden for guidance.
Then she taught him how to catch fish with a bent twig and a lightninglike movement of her brown hands—or, rather, tried to teach him, for he was far too slow and awkward to succeed.
Afterward they sat upon the soft grass beneath the shade of a wild fig-tree to eat the fish she had caught. Waldo wondered how in the world the girl could make fire without matches, for he was quite sure that she had none; and even should she be able to make fire it would be quite useless, since she had neither cooking utensils nor stove.
He was not left long in wonderment.
She arranged the fish in a little pile between them, and with a sweet smile motioned to the man to partake; then she selected one for herself, and while Waldo Emerson looked on in horror, sunk her firm, white teeth into the raw fish.
Waldo turned away in sickening disgust.
The girl seemed surprised and worried that he did not eat. Time and again she tried to coax him by signs to join her; but he could not even look at her. He had tried, after the first wave of revolt had subsided, but when he discovered that she ate the entire fish, without bothering to clean it or remove the scales, he became too ill to think of food.
Several times during the following week they ventured from their hiding-place, and at these times
