But bridged it was, and that oddly. The woman stood for a moment half smiling, and then suddenly tears gathered in her eyes. She put out her hand to Singing Arrow, and the Indian took it, and they walked together back into the trees. They could not understand each other, and I wondered what they would do. But later I heard them laughing. Well, the woman was destined to surprise me, and she had done it again. I had thought her too finely woven and strong of fibre to be easily emotional. It was some hours before it came to me that she had not been with another woman since the night the savages had found her in the Connecticut farmhouse. All the world had been a foe to be feared and parried except myself, and I had been a despot. Perhaps she did not know herself. Perhaps she would welcome Benjamin Starling after all. No matter what her horror of him, she could at least be natural with him, if only to show her scorn. CHAPTER XVI THE STORM We embarked in good season that morning and followed the line of the peninsula in its slant to the southwest. It was a pleasant shore, limestone-scarped and tree-bannered, and we paddled so near to it that the squirrels scolded at us, and a daisy-spotted fawn crashed through the young cedars and stared at us with shy eyes. The birds were singing and calling like maids in a hayfield, and the woman sat with her back straight and her eyes laughing, and imitated each new note as the breeze brought it to her. She did it fairly well, but Singing Arrow could have done it better. In my heart I commended the Indian for sitting silent, for I knew that the vanity of her sex and the inherent boastfulness of her savage blood must both be whispering to her that this was the place to show her superiority. But she resisted. I had taken her in the canoe with the woman and myself, and putting Pierre in her canoe had bidden him follow. I was well satisfied to keep them apart for a time. Yet no sister of the Ursulines could have been more exemplary with her glances than this Indian was just then. She sat like a figure of destiny and watched the woman. Whether she admired or not I should not know till I saw whether she intended to imitate.