An Apache Princess

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.

"You did tell me," she answered, her eyelids drooping.

"I did!--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!"

L'ENVOI There 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.