294 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



know that meat!" and she stooped to pick a rifle fi-om the 

 wet grass ; and while, continuing to chuckle, she examined 

 carefully the neat lock, I could see her whole figure fully as I 

 ate. The form was unmistakeably that of a genuine woman. 

 The figure, about five feet seven, had nothing of Amazonian 

 stoutness at all apparent, although the manner in which the 

 rifle was held and handled, would naturally lead one to sup- 

 pose that those limbs must be very compact, indeed. The 

 general outline, although obscured by the rude drapery, gave 

 you the idea of that swift tenacity which round, small bone 

 and taut-strung thews express in the young Indian runner of 

 the North, without destroying a sort of "formidable grace" 

 in its flexible natural movement. 



You were surprised, and yet you were not, that she should 

 be a woman of our own race. The features were plain, and 

 here the lines were a little sharp, though not unmatronly. 

 altogether. There was an expression of care, not faded, but 

 eager, anxious, longing. The eye seemed so calm and frank, 

 quick, open, large and blue, that that you could never have 

 conceived the finely arched eye-brow as darkening of itself, 

 but simply as drawn down by the possible contracting of a 

 " dreary mouth austere" below. In a word, with her tanned, 

 self-possessed face, her hair slightly tinged with gray, her half- 

 hunter and half Indian-woman costume, her concise language, 

 her sudden appearance, she was to me the most extraordinary 

 mortal phenomenon I had yet met with. I was too hungry 

 to philosophize or speculate, so there was nothing left me to 

 do but live in the exhausted present, and wait for the future 

 to enlighten me concerning her. 



She leaned the gun, re-covering the lock with a buck's skin 

 guard, carefully against my saddle, which I observed upon 

 the grass, and seeming to be satisfied from her inspection that 

 the tube was all right and the cap now entirely dry, she 

 walked towards my horse, merely saying, — " Sleep again, 

 boy, and you will be ready !" The curt injunction seemed 



