etimes
dreamed of. And with perfect trust and simple faith she had yielded her
soul to him.

Foot by foot Marcel moved out, always thrusting his trophy ahead of him.
There was a growing vibration in the leaning tree. It laboured under his
weight. He pressed on, his whole mind and purpose concentrated. Keeko
watched the roots for a sign of the strain. There was none. She glanced
out at the distance he yet had to go. And the length of it prompted a
warning cry she dared not utter. Farther and farther he passed on. Then
came a pause that suggested uncertainty.

Keeko's heart leapt. Was he dizzy? Had he suddenly become aware of the
perilous depth below him? Was his nerve----?

The moment passed. He was moving on again. The far off head of the tree
was coming nearer, but the vibration had increased with his movements.
Would the roots hold? Could they be expected to with the balance so
heavily against them? Keeko could look no longer, and, in the agony of
the moment, she seized hold of the upstanding roots and clung to them in
a ridiculously impotent frenzy of hope that the weight of her own light
body might help him.

The vibrations of the tree ceased and Keeko raised her terrified eyes
for the meaning.

A wave of partial relief swept over her. Marcel had reached his goal. He
had swung up the great moose head to set it in position. It was a
breathless moment. She understood that his greatest difficulties had
begun, and again she withdrew her gaze. But she clung to the roots of
the tree, desperately determined that if the tree fell it should drag
her to the disaster waiting upon him.

The suspense seemed endless. But at last there was renewed vibration in
the tree. Keeko raised her eyes again. Marcel was moving backwards, and
there, right at the broken head of the tree, the fleshless skull with
its magnificent antlers was set up in its place.

The girl was still clinging to the upstanding roots when Marcel leapt
from his seat on the trunk and stood confronting her. His quick, smiling
eyes took in the meaning of the situation at once. He reached out and
removed the hands from their task, and, in doing so, he retained them
longer than was necessary.

"You guessed you could hold that up if it--fell?" he asked.

And Keeko's reply was full of confusion.

"I didn't think," she stammered. "I didn't know what to do. It was
shaking, and I thought--I thought----"

"You didn't want me to get smashed on the rocks below. Wel