whereon the old Fort stood. It was absurdly wide for the
trifling watercourse it now disgorged upon the river. But then, in
spring the whole character of it was changed. In spring it was a
rushing torrent, fed by the melting snows, and tearing out its banks in
a wild, rebellious effort against all restraint.

Just now its marshy bed was beyond Jessie's powers to negotiate. They
stood looking across it at the inviting shades of an avenue of heavy
red willows, with its winding alley of tawny grass fringing the stately
pine woods, whose depths suggested the chastened aisles of some
mediaeval cathedral.

To the disappointed girl all further progress in that direction seemed
hopeless, and Kars stood watching the play of her feelings in the
expression of the mobile features he had learned to dream about on the
long trail. His steady eyes were smiling happily. Even the
roughnesses of his rugged face seemed to have softened under the
influence of his new feelings. His heavy, thrusting jaw had lost
something of the grim setting it wore upon the trail. His brows had
lost their hard depression, and the smile in his eyes lit up the whole
of his face with a transparent frankness and delight. Just now he was
a perfect illustration of the man Father Jose beheld in him.

He pointed across the waterway.

"Kind of seems a pity," he said, with a tantalizing suggestion in his
smiling eyes. "Git a peek under those shady willows. The grass, too.
We don't get a heap of grass north of 'sixty.' Then the sun's getting
in amongst those branches. An' we need to turn right around back.
Seems a pity."

The girl withdrew her gaze from the scene. Her eyes smiled up into
his. They were so softly gray. So full of trusting delight.

"What can we do?" she asked, a woman looking for guidance from the one
man.

"Do?"

Kars laughed. He flung out a hand. He was not thinking of what he
purposed. The magic of Jessie's personality held him. Her tall
gracious figure. Its exquisite modeling. The full rounded shoulders,
their contours unconcealed by the light jacket she was wearing. Her
neck, soft with the gentle fulness of youth. The masses of ruddy brown
hair coiled on her bare head without any of the artificiality of the
women he encountered in Leaping Horse. The delicate complexion of her
oval cheeks, untouched by the fierce climate in which she lived. To
him she had become a perfect picture of womanhood.

The girl laid her