The Judge looked admiringly at the intellectual features of the
graceful girl, and half forgot the slight annoyances of the green
wood in the musical accents of his daughter. He was smoothing her
hair tenderly, when the shadow of a tall figure, which suddenly
darkened the doorway, caused him to look up.


CHAPTER II.


It needed but a glance at the new-comer to detect at once the form
and features of the haughty aborigine,--the untaught and
untrammelled son of the forest. Over one shoulder a blanket,
negligently but gracefully thrown, disclosed a bare and powerful
breast, decorated with a quantity of three-cent postage-stamps
which he had despoiled from an Overland Mail stage a few weeks
previous. A cast-off beaver of Judge Tompkins's, adorned by a
simple feather, covered his erect head, from beneath which his
straight locks descended. His right hand hung lightly by his side,
while his left was engaged in holding on a pair of pantaloons,
which the lawless grace and freedom of his lower limbs evidently
could not brook.

"Why," said the Indian, in a low sweet tone,--"why does the Pale
Face still follow the track of the Red Man? Why does he pursue
him, even as O-kee-chow, the wild-cat, chases Ka-ka, the skunk?
Why are the feet of Sorrel-top, the white chief, among the acorns
of Muck-a-muck, the mountain forest? Why," he repeated, quietly
but firmly abstracting a silver spoon from the table,--"why do you