“I believe it wholly,” answered Stephen, taking his seat beside her again and looking down into her face teazingly with a cousinly freedom.  But it was not altogether a cousinly regard from which Katie drew back after a moment, tossing her head coquettishly, and with a heightened color, glancing past at her friend beyond him, who sat dipping one hand in the water and looking dreamily at the shore.  Stephen Archdale and his cousin Katie lived within a few miles of each other, and there had always been constant intercourse between their families.  When boy and girl, Stephen, four years the elder, the two had played together, and they had grown up, as people said, like brother and sister.  But of late it was rumored that the conduct of young Archdale was more loverlike than brotherly, and that, if Katie choose, the tie between them would one day be closer than that of cousinhood.  The stranger who sat opposite Archdale, watching them both in silence, was of the same opinion.  He was rather portly for his age, which could not have been over thirty, and as he sat in the boat he looked a taller man than he proved to be when on his feet.  His dark-brown beard was full, his eyes, like Archdale’s, were in shadow, for he had drawn down his hat well over his brows, while Stephen and young Waldo sat bareheaded in the August air.

“I wonder”—­began Katie.

“A sturgeon!” cried Mrs. Eveleigh, the last member of the party.

But the sound proved the soft dip of the paddle in the water as a canoe came toward them going down the stream.  Its Indian occupant when he shot by turned his gaze stealthily upon the gay party.

“How many more of your red savages are there coming to spy upon us?” And the speaker pushed back his hat a trifle, and looked up and down the river with an anxiety that he could not quite conceal.

“You’ve not been out here long enough,” laughed Waldo.  “There’s no danger; the red savages are friendly with us just at this moment, and will remain so until we forget our rifles some day, or they learn that we’re short of ammunition.  Shoot ’em down without mercy whenever they come spying about—­it’s the only way.  They’re friendly so long as they are afraid, and not a moment longer.  For instance, why should that fellow stop?  He saw three men whom he knew were armed, besides that young man who’s pretending to sail the boat—­why don’t you do it, Kit?” and Waldo laughed good-humoredly at the lad whose office had become a sinecure.  “When you get used to them, Mr. Harwin,” he added, “they will not make you shiver.”

“Oh, they don’t do that now,” returned the other, indifferently, “but, the ladies”—­

“As to the ladies,” laughed Katie, “one of them is quite fond of the red-skins; the other,” glancing at her friend, “has gone into a brown study; I don’t believe she’s heard or seen anything for the last half hour.  Elizabeth, when you fish up any pearls there out of the water, share them with us, won’t you?”