The unerring way with which he pursued a viewless,undeviating path through those trackless woods,his quick reconnaissance of certain trees or openings,his mute inspection of some almost imperceptible footprint of bird or beast,his critical examination of certain plants which he plucked and deposited in his deerskin haversack,were not lost on the quick-witted woman.
As they gradually changed the clear,unencumbered aisles of the central woods for a more tangled undergrowth,Teresa felt that subtle admiration which culminates in imitation,and simulating perfectly the step,tread,and easy swing of her companion,followed so accurately his lead that she won a gratified exclamation from him when their goal was reached--a broken,blackened shaft,splintered by long-forgotten lightning,in the centre of a tangled carpet of wood-clover.
"I don't wonder you distanced the deputy,"he said cheerfully,throwing down his burden,"if you can take the hunting-path like that.In a few days,if you stay here,I can venture to trust you alone for a little pasear when you are tired of the tree."Teresa looked pleased,but busied herself with arrangements for the breakfast,while he gathered the fuel for the roaring fire which soon blazed beside the shattered tree.
Teresa's breakfast was a success.It was a revelation to the young nomad,whose ascetic habits and simple tastes were usually content with the most primitive forms of frontier cookery.It was at least a surprise to him to know that without extra trouble kneaded flour,water,and saleratus need not be essentially heavy;that coffee need not be boiled with sugar to the consistency of syrup;that even that rarest delicacy,small shreds of venison covered with ashes and broiled upon the end of a ramrod boldly thrust into the flames,would be better and even more expeditiously cooked upon burning coals.Moved in his practical nature,he was surprised to find this curious creature of disorganized nerves and useless impulses informed with an intelligence that did not preclude the welfare of humanity or the existence of a soul.He respected her for some minutes,until in the midst of a culinary triumph a big tear dropped and spluttered in the saucepan.But he forgave the irrelevancy by taking no notice of it,and by doing full justice to that particular dish.
Nevertheless,he asked several questions based upon these recently discovered qualities.It appeared that in the old days of her wanderings with the circus troupe she had often been forced to undertake this nomadic housekeeping.But she "despised it,"had never done it since,and always had refused to do it for "him"--the personal pronoun referring,as Low understood,to her lover,Curson.Not caring to revive these memories further,Low briefly concluded:"I don't know what you were,or what you may be,but from what I see of you you've got all the sabe of a frontierman's wife."She stopped and looked at him,and then with an impulse of imprudence that only half concealed a more serious vanity,asked,"Do you think I might have made a good squaw?""I don't know,"he replied quietly."I never saw enough of them to know."Teresa,confident from his clear eyes that he spoke the truth,but having nothing ready to follow this calm disposal of her curiosity,relapsed into silence.
The meal finished,Teresa washed their scant table equipage in a little spring near the camp-fire;where,catching sight of her disordered dress and collar,she rapidly threw her shawl,after the national fashion,over her shoulder and pinned it quickly.
Low cached the remaining provisions and the few cooking utensils under the dead embers and ashes,obliterating all superficial indication of their camp-fire as deftly and artistically as he had before.
"There isn't the ghost of a chance,"he said in explanation,"that anybody but you or I will set foot here before we come back to supper,but it's well to be on guard.I'll take you back to the cabin now,though I bet you could find your way there as well as I can."On their way back Teresa ran ahead of her companion,and plucking a few tiny leaves from a hidden oasis in the bark-strewn trail brought them to him.
"That's the kind you're looking for,isn't it?"she said,half timidly.
"It is,"responded Low,in gratified surprise;"but how did you know it?You're not a botanist,are you?""I reckon not,"said Teresa;"but you picked some when we came,and I noticed what they were."Here was indeed another revelation.Low stopped and gazed at her with such frank,open,utterly unabashed curiosity that her black eyes fell before him.
"And do you think,"he asked with logical deliberation,"that you could find any plant from another I should give you?""Yes."
"Or from a drawing of it"
"Yes;perhaps even if you described it to me."A half-confidential,half-fraternal silence followed.
"I tell you what.I've got a book--"
"I know it,"interrupted Teresa;"full of these things.""Yes.Do you think you could--"
"Of course I could,"broke in Teresa,again.
"But you don't know what I mean,"said the imperturbable Low.
"Certainly I do.Why,find 'em,and preserve all the different ones for you to write under--that's it,isn't it?"Low nodded his head,gratified but not entirely convinced that she had fully estimated the magnitude of the endeavor.
"I suppose,"said Teresa,in the feminine postum voice which it would seem entered even the philosophical calm of the aisles they were treading--"I suppose that SHE places great value on them?"Low had indeed heard Science personified before,nor was it at all impossible that the singular woman walking by his side had also.He said "Yes;"but added,in mental reference to the Linnean Society of San Francisco,that "THEY were rather particular about the rarer kinds."Content as Teresa had been to believe in Low's tender relations with some favored ONE of her sex,this frank confession of a plural devotion staggered her.
"They?"she repeated.
