The Rain Upon the Wigwam

"Yes. After all, that was imprudent--"

"You can ride and shoot an arrow swift and far. Your eyes are keen and your tread lithe and soft like a fawn--"

"It is all the wild lore of the woodland I learned as a child."

"But Sho-caw does not know! To him the gypsy heart of you, the sun-brown skin and scarlet cheeks, the night-black hair beneath the turban, are but the lure and charm of an errant daughter of the O-kee-fee-ne-kee wilderness. What wonder that he can not see you as you are, a dark-eyed child of the race of white men!"

"I do not wonder."

"He has been grave and very deferential, gathered wood for you and carried water. Yesterday there was a freshly killed deer at the door of the wigwam. It is the first shy overture of the wooing Seminole."

"I know. Keela has told me. It has all frightened me a little. I--I think I had better go away again."

"There was a time, in the days of Arcadia, when Philip would have laughed, and a second deer would have lain at the door of your wig-wam--"

"Philip is changed."

"He is quieter--"

"Yes."

"A little sterner--"

"Yes."

"Like one perhaps who has abandoned a dream!"

"I--do--not--know."

"Why does he ride away for days with Sho-caw?"

"I have wondered."

The wind, wafting from the rain which splashed in the pool of Mic-co's court, might have told, but the wind, with the business of rain upon its mind, was reticent.