king the
beautiful Los Ossis valley. Our plans were made for the future, and I
was to leave that night for Arizona. It was the tender parting of man
and woman whose lives had been seared by the hot irons of adversity,
and each felt that the other was the one and all upon this planet.

* * * * *

Here Buchan's narrative was broken short. He was writing the last
chapter on a pair of ladies' dainty cuffs, when he stopped and
listened. He arose to his feet. "Do you know," he said, "I thought a
moment ago I heard something--her voice."

XX.

A DAUGHTER OF THE CHEROKEES.

Mary Greenwater was not the ugly, coarse-featured woman that many
squaws are. She possessed many of the fine features of her white
sisters. She had been well educated at the Carlisle Indian school, and
had traveled much. While, with other Cherokee Indians, she drew her
annuities from the government, yet she was known to be the wealthiest
woman of the tribe. She was lavish in the expenditure of money. Her
home in the Cherokee hills was elaborately furnished with the richest
of carpets and furniture; even a grand piano adorned her parlor. But
with all its costly appointments, the house was a wilderness of
disorder. Like other of her race, she despised anything akin to
neatness. Her dresses were gaudy in color and extravagant in style.
Pearl necklaces, diamond brooches and rings were worn on all
occasions. She owned fine carriages and many spirited horses. As a
horsewoman, she was an expert and as a pistol shot she was accounted
the best in the Cherokee nation. Her servants were the half-breed
Indian Negroes to whom her word was as absolute a law as any Caliph
ever possessed over a tribe. She was accustomed to command, and if
disobeyed she enforced her orders at the point of the revolver she
always carried.

The source of Mary Greenwater's wealth was a mystery. Those of her
tribe gave themselves no concern about it, but the matter was a
subject of much comment among the few white men in the territory.
Mercer, a young man of adventurous spirit, hearing of her fabulous
wealth, sought her hand in marriage. After the wedding, he used all
his arts to wring from her the secret of her riches. Once when she
started on one of her lone journeys to the hills of the Grand River,
he attempted to follow and that was the last ever seen or heard of
him. That the woman possessed the secret of a vast amount of lost
treas