Chapter 4

Emerging from behind a great rock, which had partly concealed them, they both stood in the light of the fire, holding each other's hands. The old man looked at them with astonishment, and involuntarily exclaimed:

"What is that?"

For he saw a sight which, in the sparsely populated mountains of Santa Ana, would astonish any one. Orso and Jenny were dressed in their circus attire. The beautiful girl, clothed in pink tights and short white skirt, appearing so suddenly before him, looked in the firelight like some fairy sylph. Behind her stood the youth with his powerful figure, covered also with pink fleshings, through which you could see his muscles standing out like knots on the oak.

The old squatter gazed at them with wide-open eyes.

"Who are you?" he inquired.

The girl, relying more on her own eloquence than on that of Orso, began to speak.

"We are from the circus, kind sir! Mr. Hirsch beat Orso very much and then wanted to beat me, but Orso did not let him, and fought Mr. Hirsch and four negroes, and then we ran off on the plains, and went a long distance through the cacti, and Orso carried me; then we came here and are very hungry."

The face of the old man softened and brightened as he listened to her story, and he looked with a fatherly interest on this charming child, who spoke with great haste, as if she wished to tell all in one breath.

"What is your name, little one?" he asked.

"Jenny."

"Welcome, Jenny! and you, Orso! people rarely come here. Come to me, Jenny."

Without hesitation the little girl put her arms around the neck of the old man and kissed him warmly. He appeared to her to be some one from the "good book."

"Will Mr. Hirsch find us here?" she said, as she took her lips from his face.

"If he comes he will find a bullet here," replied the old man; then added, "you said that you wanted to eat?"

"Oh, yes, very much."

The squatter, raking in the ashes of the fire, took out a fine leg of venison, the pleasant odor of which filled the air. Then they sat down to eat.

The night was gorgeous; the moon came out high in the heavens above the cañon; in the thicket the mavis began to sing sweetly; the fire burned brightly, and Orso was so filled with joy that he chanted with gladness. Both he and the girl ate heartily. The old man had no appetite; he looked upon little Jenny, and, for some unknown cause, his eyes were filled with tears.

Perhaps he had been once a father, or, perhaps, he so rarely saw people in these deserted mountains.

* * * * *

Since then these three lived together.

End of Project Gutenberg's Sielanka: An Idyll, by Henryk Sienkiewicz