One evening, as the fog began to drift over the sand-hills, the recluse sat alone in his hut.  The fire was dying unheeded on the hearth, for he had been sitting there for a long time, completely absorbed in the blurred pages of an old newspaper.  Presently he arose, and, refolding it,—­an operation of great care and delicacy in its tattered condition,—­placed it under the blankets of his bed.  He resumed his seat by the fire, but soon began drumming with his fingers on the arm of his chair.  Eventually this assumed the time and accent of some air.  Then he began to whistle softly and hesitatingly, as if trying to recall a forgotten tune.  Finally this took shape in a rude resemblance, not unlike that which his flag bore to the national standard, to Yankee Doodle.  Suddenly he stopped.

There was an unmistakable rapping at the door.  The blood which had at first rushed to his face now forsook it and settled slowly around his heart.  He tried to rise, but could not.  Then the door was flung open, and a figure with a scarlet-lined hood and fur mantle stood on the threshold.  With a mighty effort he took one stride to the door.  The next moment he saw the wide mouth and white teeth of the Princess, and was greeted by a kiss that felt like a baptism.

To tear the hood and mantle from her figure in the sudden fury that seized him, and to fiercely demand the reason of this masquerade, was his only return to her greeting.  “Why are you here? did you steal these garments?” he again demanded in her guttural language, as he shook her roughly by the arm.  The Princess hung her head.  “Did you?” he screamed, as he reached wildly for his rifle.

“I did?”

His hold relaxed, and he staggered back against the wall.  The Princess began to whimper.  Between her sobs, she was trying to explain that the Major and his daughter were going away, and that they wanted to send her to the Reservation; but he cut her short.  “Take off those things!” The Princess tremblingly obeyed.  He rolled them up, placed them in the canoe she had just left, and then leaped into the frail craft.  She would have followed, but with a great oath he threw her from him, and with one stroke of his paddle swept out into the fog, and was gone.

“Jessamy,” said the Major, a few days after, as he sat at dinner with his daughter, “I think I can tell you something to match the mysterious disappearance and return of your wardrobe.  Your crazy friend, the recluse, has enlisted this morning in the Fourth Artillery.  He’s a splendid-looking animal, and there’s the right stuff for a soldier in him, if I’m not mistaken.  He’s in earnest too, for he enlists in the regiment ordered back to Washington.  Bless me, child, another goblet broken; you’ll ruin the mess in glassware, at this rate!”

“Have you heard anything more of the Princess, papa?”

“Nothing, but perhaps it’s as well that she has gone.  These cursed settlers are at their old complaints again about what they call ’Indian depredations,’ and I have just received orders from head-quarters to keep the settlement clear of all vagabond aborigines.  I am afraid, my dear, that a strict construction of the term would include your protegee.”