She was
walking swiftly with the easy, swinging grace of a good figure and good
health, but when he joined her she went more slowly.
He did not speak for a few moments, and she gave him a silent glance of
sympathy. In her woman's heart she guessed the cause of his trouble, and
while she had been afraid of him when he appeared suddenly as the Indian
warrior yet she liked him better in that part than as she now saw him.
Then he was majestic, now he was prosaic, and it seemed to her that his
present role was unfitting.
"You are tired," she said at last.
"Well, not in the body exactly, but I feel like resting."
There was no complaint in his tone, but a slight touch of irony.
"Do you think that you will make a good farmer?" she asked.
"As good as the times and our situation allow," he replied. "Wandering
parties of the savages are likely to pass near here and in the course of
time they may send back an army. Besides one has to hunt now, as for a
long while we must depend on the forest for a part of our food."
It seemed to her that these things did not cause him sorrow, that he
turned to them as a sort of relief: his eyes sparkled more brightly when
he spoke of the necessity for hunting and the possible passage of Indian
parties which must be repelled.
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