ains came again, the three of them--Neilson and Ben and Beatrice--could
glide on down to the Indian encampments in the canoe. Thence they could
reach the white settlements beyond the mountains.

Her glance into the future went still farther, because she knew certain
news that as yet Ben had not heard. She had heard from Ray's lips that
night that Ben's claim had been legally filed; he had only to return and
take possession. It straightened out the future, promised success in the
battle of life, gave him an interest to hold him in these northern
forests. But she would not tell him to-night. It could wait for a more
quiet hour.

Presently she saw that he was trying to speak to her, whispering; trying
to draw her ear down to his lips. She smiled, with an infinite
tenderness. Dimly though he spoke, she heard him every word.

"I love you," he told her simply. He watched her face, as intently as
the three Wise Men watched the East, for a sign. And he saw it, clear
and ineffably wonderful, in the stars that came into her eyes.

"I love you," she answered, with equal simplicity. They lay a while in
silence, blissful in this wonder each had for the other, wholly content
just that their hands and lips should touch.

The same miracle was upon them both; and the girl's thought, ranging
far, seized upon a deep and moving discovery. "All this belongs to us,"
she told him, indicating with one movement of her arm the boundless
solitudes about them. "This is our own country, isn't it, Ben? We can't
ever--go away."

It was true: they could never leave the forest for long. They were its
children, bred in the bone. Their strong thews would waste in a gentler
land. It was their heritage. They must not go where they could not
behold the dark line of the forest against the sky.

The fire burned down. The moon wheeled through the sky. The tall spruce
saw the dawn afar and beckoned.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Sky Line of Spruce, by Edison Marshall

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