“May I lead the colt while you ride?”

“Oh, no, I am not tired,” was his answer.

“I want to do something for you.”

“Why?”

“I am so grateful.  I feel like the King’s cat.  I am trying to express my feelings.  I think I know, now, why the Indian women do the drudgery.”

As she looked at Him her dark eyes were very serious.

“I have done little,” said he.  “It is Mr. Binkus who rescued you.  We live in a wild country among savages and the white folks have to protect each other.  We’re used to it.”

“I never saw or expected to see men like you,” she went on.  “I have read of them in books, but I never hoped to see them and talk to them.  You are like Ajax and Achilles.”

“Then I shall say that you are like the fair lady for whom they fought.”

“I will not ride and see you walking.”

“Then sit forward as far as you can and I will ride with you,” he answered.

In a moment he was on the colt’s back behind her.  She was a comely maiden.  An authority no less respectable than Major Duncan has written that she was a tall, well shaped, fun loving girl a little past sixteen and good to look upon, “with dark eyes and auburn hair, the latter long and heavy and in the sunlight richly colored”; that she had slender fingers and a beautiful skin, all showing that she had been delicately bred.  He adds that he envied the boy who had ridden before and behind her half the length of Tryon County.

It was a close association and Jack found it so agreeable that he often referred to that ride as the most exciting adventure of his life.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Margaret Hare,” she answered.

“How did they catch you?”

“Oh, they came suddenly and stealthily, as they do in the story books, when we were alone in camp.  My father and the guides had gone out to hunt.”

“Did they treat you well?”

“The Indians let us alone, but the two white men annoyed and frightened us.  The old chief kept us near him.”

“The old chief knew better than to let any harm come to you until they were sure of getting away with their plunder.”

“We were in the valley of death and you have led us out of it.  I am sure that I do not look as if I were worth saving.  I suppose that I must have turned into an old woman.  Is my hair white?”

“No.  You are the best-looking girl I ever saw,” he declared with rustic frankness.

“I never had a compliment that pleased me so much,” she answered, as her elbows tightened a little on his hands which were clinging to her coat.  “I almost loved you for what you did to the old villain.  I saw blood on the side of your head.  I fear he hurt you?”

“He jabbed me once.  It is nothing.”

“How brave you were!”

“I think I am more scared now than I was then,” said Jack.