L'ENVOI

"Natzie wrenched her hand from that of Blakely, and with the spring of a tigress bounded away""Natzie wrenched her hand from that of Blakely, and with the spring of a tigress bounded away"

He called again, "Natzie," and held forth his hand. Her head had drooped upon her breast, but, once again, she looked upon him, and then, with one slow, hesitant, backward glance about her, stepped forward, her little, moccasined feet flitting from rock to rock across the murmuring shallows until she stood before him. Then he spoke, but she only shook her head and let it droop again, her hands passively clasping. He knew too little of her tongue to plead with her. He knew, perhaps, too little of womankind to appreciate what he was doing. Finding words useless, he gently took her hand and drew her with him, and passively she obeyed, and for a moment they disappeared from Angela's view. Then presently the tall, white form came again in sight, slowly leading the unresisting child, until, in another moment, they stepped within the little open space among the willows. At the same instant Angela arose, and the daughter of the soldier and the daughter of the savage, the one with timid yet hopeful welcome and greeting in her lovely face, the other with sudden amaze, scorn, passion, and jealous fury in her burning eyes, stood a breathless moment confronted. Then, all in a second, with one half-stifled, inarticulate cry, Natzie wrenched her hand from that of Blakely, and, with the spring of a tigress, bounded away. Just at the edge of the pool she halted, whirled about, tore from her bosom a flat, oblong packet and hurled it athis feet; then, with the dart of a frightened deer, drove through the northward willows. Angela saw her run blindly up the bank, leaping thence to the rocks below, bounding from one to another with the wild grace of the antelope. Another instant and she had reached the opposite shore, and there, tossing her arms wildly above her head, her black tresses streaming behind her, with a cry that was almost a scream, she plunged into the heart of the thicket; the stubborn branches closed behind her, and our Apache queen was gone. As they met, so had they parted, by the waters of the pool.

When Blakely turned again to Angela she, too, was gone. He found her a little later, her arms twined about her pony's neck, her face buried in his mane, and sobbing as though her heart would break.

On a soft, starlit evening within the week, no longer weeping, but leaning on Blakely's arm, Angela stood at the edge of the bluff, looking far out over the Red Rock country to the northeast. The sentry had reported a distant signal fire, and several of the younger people had strolled out to see. Whatever it was that had caused the report had vanished by the time they reached the post, so, presently, Kate Sanders started the homeward move, and now even the sentry had disappeared in the darkness. When Angela, too, would have returned, his arm restrained. She knew it would. She knew he had not spoken that evening at the willows because of her tears. She knew he had been patient, forbearing, gentle, yet well she knew he meant now to speak and wait no longer.

"Do you remember," he began, "when I said that some day I should tell you—but never your aunt—who it was that came to my quarters that night—and why she came?" and though she sought to remove her hand from his arm he would not let it go.

"Youdidtell me," she answered, her eyelids drooping.

"Idid!—when?"

Though the face was downcast, the sensitive lips began to quiver with merriment and mischief.

"The same day you took me for—your mother—and asked me to sing for you."

"Angela!" he cried, in amaze, and turning quickly toward her, "What can you mean?"

"Just what I say. You began as though I were your sister, then your mother. I think, perhaps, if we'd had another hour together it would have been grandmother." She was shaking with suppressed laughter now, or was it violent trembling, for his heart, like hers, was bounding.

"I must indeed have been delirious," he answered now, not laughing, not even smiling. He had possessed himself of that other hand, despite its fluttering effort. His voice was deep and grave and tremulous. "I called you anything but what I most longed to call you—what I pray God I may call you, Angela—my wife!"

here was a wedding at Sandy that winter when Pat Mullins took his discharge, and his land warrant, and a claim up the Beaver, and Norah Shaughnessy to wife. There was another, many a mile from Sandy, when the May blossoms were showering in the orchard of a fair old homestead in the distant East, and then Neil Blakely took his bride to see "the land of the leal" after the little peep at the lands that now she shared with him. There is one room in the beautiful old Colonial mansion that they soon learned to call "father's," in anticipation of the time when he should retire and come to hang the old saber on the older mantel and spend his declining years with them. There is another, sacred to Aunt Janet, where she was often welcomed, a woman long since reconciled to Angela's once "obnoxious," but ever devoted admirer. There were some points in which Aunt Janet suffered sore. She had views of her own upon the rearing and management of children, and these views she did at first oppose to those of Angela, but not for long. In this, as in her choice of a husband, Angela had to read her declaration of independence to the elder woman.

There is another room filled with relics of their frontier days,—Indian weapons, blankets, beadwork,—and amongthese, in a sort of shrine of its own, there hangs a portrait made by a famous artist from a little tintype, taken by some wandering photographer about the old Apache reservation. Wren wrote them, ere the regiment left Arizona, that she who had been their rescuer, and then so long disappeared, finally wedded a young brave of the Chiricahua band and went with him to Mexico. That portrait is the only relic they have of a never forgotten benefactress—Natzie, their Apache Princess.

The Chicago Daily News

A stronger story than any he has written for many years.

The Philadelphia Item

A genuinely delightful tale, clean, wholesome, thoroughly enjoyable....

The Baltimore American

Is full of interest, and equals, if not surpasses, his best previous efforts.

The Portland (Me.) Press

This captivating novel is quite perfect of its kind and there is not one dull line from start to finish.

The Burlington Hawkeye

Is one of General King's best works and withal a most entertaining and fascinating story of army life.

The San Francisco Chronicle

The story is full of life and movement, and all the details of army life are described with that perfect knowledge which carries conviction to the reader.

The Cleveland Leader

It is the strongest and most entertaining story he has written for many a day.... It gets a grip on the reader in the first chapters and holds it to the end.

The World, New York City

A soldier's story told with a soldier's swing.... Is capitally illustrated and has a particularly handsome and tasteful cover portrait of the heroine in colors.

The Pittsburg Leader

There is a naturalness about the story that makes it of decided interest, and every one who reads it will lay the book down with a feeling of regret that the end has been reached so soon.

The Minneapolis Tribune

Is the best piece of work General King has given his admiring public in a long time. Is full of incident and romance, and its central theme contains a dramatic power worthy of subject and author.

The Literary World

To General King we are deeply indebted for much information concerning family life at fort and trading post. In these days of the problem novel and the yellow journal, it is a mental pleasure and a moral profit to read of men who are in love with their own wives, of women who adore their own husbands.

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