her and did not know it.

CHAPTER XV

Dale stood with face and arm upraised, and he watched Helen ride off the
ledge to disappear in the forest. That vast spruce slope seemed to have
swallowed her. She was gone! Slowly Dale lowered his arm with gesture
expressive of a strange finality, an eloquent despair, of which he was
unconscious.

He turned to the park, to his camp, and the many duties of a hunter. The
park did not seem the same, nor his home, nor his work.

"I reckon this feelin's natural," he soliloquized, resignedly, "but it's
sure queer for me. That's what comes of makin' friends. Nell an' Bo,
now, they made a difference, an' a difference I never knew before."

He calculated that this difference had been simply one of
responsibility, and then the charm and liveliness of the companionship
of girls, and finally friendship. These would pass now that the causes
were removed.

Before he had worked an hour around camp he realized a change had come,
but it was not the one anticipated. Always before he had put his mind on
his tasks, whatever they might be; now he worked while his thoughts were
strangely involved.

The little bear cub whined at his heels; the tame deer seemed to regard
him with deep, questioning eyes, the big cougar padded softly here and
there as if searching for something.

"You all miss them--now--I reckon," said Dale. "Well, they're gone an'
you'll have to get along with me."

Some vague approach to irritation with his pets surprised him. Presently
he grew both irritated and surprised with himself--a state of mind
totally unfamiliar. Several times, as old habit brought momentary
abstraction, he found himself suddenly looking around for Helen and
Bo. And each time the shock grew stronger. They were gone, but their
presence lingered. After his camp chores were completed he went over to
pull down the lean-to which the girls had utilized as a tent. The spruce
boughs had dried out brown and sear; the wind had blown the roof awry;
the sides were leaning in. As there was now no further use for
this little habitation, he might better pull it down. Dale did not
acknowledge that his gaze had involuntarily wandered toward it many
times. Therefore he strode over with the intention of destroying it.

For the first time since Roy and he had built the lean-to he stepped
inside. Nothing was more certain than the fact that he experienced a
strange sensation, perfectly incomprehensible to him. The bla