Neale recognized her beauty at the instant he realized her love, and he was so utterly astounded at the one, and overwhelmed with the other, that he was mute.  A powerful reaction took place within him, so strong that it helped to free him from the other emotions.  He found his tongue and controlled his glance.

“I took you for an Indian girl in all this buckskin,” he said.

“Dress, leggings, moccasins, I made them all myself,” she replied, sweeping a swift hand from fringe to beads.  “Not a single button!  Oh, it was hard—­so much work!  But they’re more comfortable than any clothes I ever had.”

“So you’ve not been—­altogether idle since I left?”

“Since that day,” and she blushed exquisitely at the words, “I’ve been doing everything under the sun except that grieving which you disliked—­everything—­cooking, sewing, fishing, bathing, climbing, riding, shooting—­and watching for you.”

“That accounts,” he replied, musingly.

“For what?”

“Your—­your improvement.  You seem happy—­and well.”

“Do you mean the activity accounts for that—­or my watching for you?” she queried, archly.  She was quick, bright, roguish.  Neale had no idea what qualities she might have possessed before that fateful massacre, but she was bewilderingly different from the sick-minded girl he had tried so hard to interest and draw out of her gloom.  He was so amazed, so delighted with her, and so confused with his own peculiar state of mind, that he could not be natural.  Then his mood shifted and a little heat at his own stupidity aroused his wits.

“Allie, I want to realize what’s happened,” he said.  “Let’s sit down here.  We sat here once before, if you remember.  Slingerland can wait to see me.”

Neale’s horse grazed along the green border of the brook.  The water ran with low, swift rush; there were bees humming round the autumn flowers and a fragrance of wood-smoke wafted down from the camp; over all lay the dreaming quietness of the season and the wild.

Allie sat down upon the rock, but Neale, changing his mind, stood beside her.  Still he did not trust himself to face her.  He was unsettled, uncertain.  All this was like a dream.

“So you watched for me?” he asked, gently.

“For hours and days and weeks,” she sighed.

“Then you—­cared—­cared a little for me?”

She kept silence.  And he, wanting intensely to look up, did not.

“Tell me,” he insisted, with a hint of the old dominance.  He remembered again the scene at the crossing of the brook.  Could he control this wonderful girl now?

“Of course,” she replied.

“But—­how do you care?” he added, more forcibly.  He felt ashamed, yet he could not resist it.  What was happening to him?

“I—­I love you.”  Her voice was low, almost faltering, rich with sweetness, and full of some unutterable emotion.