When at last he came up with her she
confronted him with the wide innocent gaze of a child suddenly
startled in its play. Then the swift instinct of the savage, the
uncontrollable desire to fly, took possession of her. But the young
man laid a light detaining hand upon her slim brown wrist. "Don't
leave me," he entreated, "I want to ask you the way home."
It was the only pretext he could invent on the spur of the moment, and
it answered his purpose admirably. She stopped to view with undisguised
amazement, tempered with faint scorn, a human being who was so ignorant
of the commonest affairs of life as to lose himself in the woods. She
never dreamed of doubting his word. "I will be your guide," she said,
with grave friendliness.
"You are very kind. I am afraid," said the youth with well-feigned
discouragement, "that we are a long way from home."
"This is my home," said Wanda, as they stepped into the shadow of the
limitless forest. "It is only white men who are content to live on a
little patch of ground and shut the sky away from them. The Indian is
at home everywhere."
"That is certainly an advantage, for when a person's home is spread
all over the continent he can never be lost.
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