small hand in his with all the confidence of a child.
The warm pressure, as his fingers closed over it, thrilled her.
Without a word of protest she submitted to his lead. They clambered
down to the water's edge.

In a moment she was lifted off her feet. She felt herself borne high
above the little gurgling cascade. Then she became aware of the
splashing feet under her. Then of a sinking sensation, as the man
waded almost knee-deep in mud. There were moments of alarmed suspense.
Then she found herself standing on the opposite bank, with the man
dripping at her side.

Of the two courses open to her she chose the better.

She laughed happily. Perhaps the choice was forced on her, for John
Kars' eyes were so full of laughter that the infection became
overwhelming.

"You--you should have told me," she exclaimed censoriously.

But the man shook his head.

"Guess you'd have--refused."

"I certainly should."

But the girl's eyes denied her words.

"Then we'd have gone around back, and you'd have been disappointed. I
couldn't stand for your being disappointed. Say----" The man paused.
His eyes were searching the sunlit avenue ahead, where the drooping
willow branches hung like floral stalactites in a cavern of ripe
foliage. "It's queer how folks'll cut out the things they're yearning
for because other folks are yearning to hand 'em on to them."

"No girl likes to be picked up, and--and thrown around like some ball
game, because a man's got the muscles of a giant," Jessie declared with
spirit.

"No. It's kind of making out he's superior to her, when he isn't.
Say, you don't figger I meant that way?"

There was anxiety in the final question for all the accompanying smile.

In a moment Jessie was all regret.

"I didn't have time to think," she said, "and anyway I wouldn't have
figgered that way. And--and I'd hate a man who couldn't do things when
it was up to him. You'd stand no sort of chance on the northern trail
if you couldn't do things. You'd have been feeding the coyotes years
back, else."

"Yes, and I'd hate to be feeding the coyotes on any trail."

They were moving down the winding woodland alley. They brushed their
way through the delicate overhanging foliage. The dank scent of the
place was seductive. It was intoxicating with an atmosphere such as
lovers are powerless to resist. The murmur of the river came to them
on the one hand, and the silence of the pine woods, on the other, le