he liked Mr.
Hayes, liked him very much, and he knew it, but that it was only a great
friendship. She had her ideal, and he did not fulfill it. "I cannot help
it," she said, earnestly; "I have ambitions for the man whom I marry. I
could really love only a man of action, of physical bravery, one who
could not be content with a life of ease, however cultivated such a
life. What have you done? You but enjoy existence! I want some one
rugged. Why, even your physical movements are languid! I'd rather marry
the roughest viking that ever sailed the seas than the most accomplished
_faineant_. I--"

The sentence was completed with one of the most piercing and agonizing
screams that ever issued from the throat of a fair young woman. At the
same instant she disappeared from sight.

Jack stood for a single second utterly appalled, but he was recalled to
life by a second scream, equaling the first in every way, and issuing
from a hole in the snow beside him. He could see in the depths the top
of a very pretty hat. He realized the situation in a moment. They had
just rounded the upturned roots of a monster fallen pine, and Miss
Lennox had broken through the crusted snow and dropped into the cavity
beneath. He threw himself on the ground, reached down his arms, and
finally calmed the fair prisoner sufficiently to enable her to do her
part. She reached up her hands; he caught a firm hold of her wrists and
began pulling her out. He lifted her thus until her head and shoulders
were in the sunlight, then sought to put an arm around her waist to
complete the task. He was not grumbling at the good the gods had sent
him. He was not at first in a hurry. With one arm at last fairly
encircling that plump person, with that soft breath upon his cheek, he
was not going to be violent. He was going to lift slowly and
intelligently until the goddess should be upon her feet again. Then,
from beneath, came a growl which was almost a roar; there was another
wild shriek from Miss Lennox, there was the sound of brushwood being
torn away, and as Jack, with a mighty effort, lifted the girl to her
feet beside him, there appeared at the hole the blazing eyes and red
mouth of a bear, furious at having been aroused from its winter sleep.

A fragment of limb lay at Jack's feet. With the unconscious instinct of
preservation for both, he seized it and struck the beast fairly on the
snout. It fell back, but uprose again, growling horribly. The girl
stood, too da