The Talking Leaves: An Indian Story, William O. Stoddard [best novels for beginners TXT] 📗

moment, but Ni-ha-be had heard and understood, and a scared look arose in her face.

"Rita! Rita! You are going away? You will not be an Apache girl any more?"

"Oh, Ni-ha-be, come with me!"

Their arms were around each other, and they were both weeping, but Ni-ha-be's mind was made up instantly.

"No. You are born white. You will go with your father. I am an Apache, and I will go with my father."

Many Bears was listening.

"Send Warning hear what young squaw say? All Apaches say good. She will stay with her own people."

Ni-ha-be consented, nevertheless, to remain with Rita at the post head-quarters as long as her friends were camped close by.

Murray and Steve were anxious to begin their return to civilization, but it would be several days before a "train" would go with an escort, and they did not care to run any farther risks.

So the "farewell" was spread over sufficient time to make all sorts of explanations and promises, and Rita's mind became so full of dreams of her new life that she could easily give up the old one.

Ni-ha-be had never seen so much of the pale-faces before, and Rita tried again and again to persuade her to change her mind, but, on the very last morning of all, she resolutely responded,

"No, Rita, you are all pale-face. All over. Head and heart both belong with white friends. Feel happy. Ni-ha-be only little Indian girl here. Out there, on plains, among mountains, Ni-ha-be is the daughter of a great chief. She is an Apache."

No doubt she was right, but she and Rita had a good long cry over it then, and probably more than one afterward. As for Dolores, she came to the fort to say good-bye, but neither Many Bears nor Red Wolf came with her.

"The heart of the great chief is sore," she said, "and he mourns for his pale-face daughter. Not want to speak."

Rita sent many kindly messages, even to Red Wolf, glad as she was that he had failed to make a bargain for her.

Out from the gates of the fort that morning wheeled the cavalry escort of the waiting "train" of supply wagons and traders' "outfits," and behind the cavalry rode a little group of three. The ladies of the garrison, with the major and the rest, had said their last farewells at the gates, and the homeward journey had begun.

"Steve," said Murray, "are you a Lipan or an Apache to-day?"

"Seems to me that is all ever so long ago. I am white again."

"So am I. At one time I had little hope that I ever should be. I never would if I had not found Rita. Oh, my daughter!"

"Father! Father, see—there she is! Oh, Ni-ha-be!"

A swift and beautiful mustang was bounding toward them across the plain from a sort of cloud of wild-looking figures at a little distance, and on its back was a form they all knew well. Nearer it came and nearer.

"She wants to say good-bye again."

Nearer still, so near that they could almost look into her dark, streaming eyes, and Rita held out her arms beseechingly; but at that moment the mustang was suddenly reined in and wheeled to the right-about, while Ni-ha-be clasped both hands upon her face.

"Ni-ha-be! Oh, Ni-ha-be!"

But she was gone like the wind, and did not come again.

"There, Rita," said her father. "It is all for the best. All your Indian life is gone, like mine and Steve's. We have something better before us now."