Her eyes
were full of questioning. He gave a hearty sign of admiration. She
flushed with pleasure, but made a naive, protesting gesture.
She was deaf and dumb.
Hilton had once a sister who was a mute. He knew that amazing primal
gesture-language of the silent race, whom God has sent like one-winged
birds into the world. He had watched in his sister just such looks of
absolute nature as flashed from this girl. They were comrades on the
instant; he reverential, gentle, protective; she sanguine, candid,
beautifully aboriginal in the freshness of her cipher-thoughts. She saw
the world naked, with a naked eye. She was utterly natural. She was the
maker of exquisite, vital gesture-speech.
She glided out from among the may-apples and the long, silken grass, to
charm his horse with her hand. As she started to do so, he hastened to
prevent her, but, utterly surprised, he saw the horse whinny to her
cheek, and arch his neck under her white palm--it was very white. Then
the animal's chin sought her shoulder and stayed placid. He had never
done so to anyone before save Hilton. Once, indeed, he had kicked a
stableman to death. He lifted his head and caught with playful shaking
lips at her ear. Hilton smiled; and so, as we said, their comradeship
began.
He was a new officer of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Guidon.
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