fire flames in silence, as
though they had found in their love that true oneness that needs no
spoken word.

Then Stanford said, "And to think that we expected to wait two years or
more, and now--thanks to a soulless corporation--we are here in a little
less than a year!"

"Thanks to no soulless corporation for that, sir," retorted Helen with
spirit. "But thanks to the brains and strength and character of my
husband."

Two of the three weeks' vacation granted the engineer had passed when
Mrs. Manning, one afternoon, informed her husband that as the ordained
provider for the household it was imperative that he provide some game
for their evening meal.

"And what does Her Majesty, the cook, desire?" he asked. "Venison,
perhaps?"

She shook her head with decision. "You will be obliged to go too far,
and be gone too long, to get a deer."

"But you're going with me, of course."

Again she shook her head. "I have something else to do. I can't always
be tagging around after you while you are providing, you know; and we
may as well begin to be civilized again. Just go a little way--not so
far that you can't hear me call--and bring me some nice fat quail like
those we had day before yesterday."

She watched him disappear in the brush and then busied herself about the
camp. Presently she heard the gun, and smiled as she pictured him
hunting for their supper, much as though they were two primitive
children of nature, instead of the two cultured members of a highly
civilized race, that they really were. Then, presently she must go to
the spring for water, that he might have a cool drink when he returned.

She was half way to the spring, singing softly to herself, when a sound
on the low ridge above the camp attracted her attention. Pausing, she
looked and listened. The song died on her lips. It could not be Staford
coming so noisily through the brush and from that direction. Even as
the thought came, she heard the gun again, a little farther away down
the narrow valley below the camp, and, in the same moment, the noise on
the ridge grew louder, as though some heavy animal were crashing through
the bushes. And then suddenly, as she stood there in frightened
indecision, a long-horned, wild-eyed steer broke through the brush on
the crest of the ridge and plunged down the steep slope toward the camp.

Weak and helpless with fear, Helen could neither scream nor run, but
stood fascinated by the very danger that menaced her-