many and all-sufficient. Among others I had heard
that another had come upon the scene. A rumour
had reached me that a little brown girl was flitting
through these forests ; wild, frightened at the sight
of man, timid, sensitive, and strangely beautiful.
Who was she? Was she the last of the family of
Mountain Joe? Was she one of the Doctor's children, half prophetess, half spirit, gliding through
the pines, shunning the face of the Saxon, or was
she even something more? Well, here is a little
secret which shall remain hers. She is a dreamer,
and delights in mystery. Who she was or who she is
I have hardly a right to say. Her name is Calle Shasta.
What was I to do? Leave her to perish there in the gathering storm that was to fall upon the Modocs and their few allies, or tear her away from her mother and the mountains?
But where was the little maiden now, as I looked from the battlement on the world below? They told me she was with my Modocs away to the east among the lakes. I waited, enquired, delayed many days, but neither she nor her mother would appear. Her mother, poor broken-hearted Indian woman, once a princess, was afraid I would carry away her little girl. At last I bade farewell, and turned down the winding hill. I heard a cry and looked up.
There on the wall she stood, waving a red scarf.
Was it the same ? Surely it was the same I had thrown her years and years before, when I left the land a fugitive.
