nkets
lay there on the spruce boughs, disarranged and thrown back by hurried
hands, yet still holding something of round folds where the slender
forms had nestled. A black scarf often worn by Bo lay covering the
pillow of pine-needles; a red ribbon that Helen had worn on her hair
hung from a twig. These articles were all that had been forgotten. Dale
gazed at them attentively, then at the blankets, and all around the
fragrant little shelter; and he stepped outside with an uncomfortable
knowledge that he could not destroy the place where Helen and Bo had
spent so many hours.

Whereupon, in studious mood, Dale took up his rifle and strode out to
hunt. His winter supply of venison had not yet been laid in. Action
suited his mood; he climbed far and passed by many a watching buck
to slay which seemed murder; at last he jumped one that was wild and
bounded away. This he shot, and set himself a Herculean task in packing
the whole carcass back to camp. Burdened thus, he staggered under the
trees, sweating freely, many times laboring for breath, aching with
toil, until at last he had reached camp. There he slid the deer carcass
off his shoulders, and, standing over it, he gazed down while his breast
labored. It was one of the finest young bucks he had ever seen. But
neither in stalking it, nor making a wonderful shot, nor in packing home
a weight that would have burdened two men, nor in gazing down at his
beautiful quarry, did Dale experience any of the old joy of the hunter.

"I'm a little off my feed," he mused, as he wiped sweat from his heated
face. "Maybe a little dotty, as I called Al. But that'll pass."

Whatever his state, it did not pass. As of old, after a long day's hunt,
he reclined beside the camp-fire and watched the golden sunset glows
change on the ramparts; as of old he laid a hand on the soft, furry head
of the pet cougar; as of old he watched the gold change to red and then
to dark, and twilight fall like a blanket; as of old he listened to
the dreamy, lulling murmur of the water fall. The old familiar beauty,
wildness, silence, and loneliness were there, but the old content seemed
strangely gone.

Soberly he confessed then that he missed the happy company of the girls.
He did not distinguish Helen from Bo in his slow introspection. When
he sought his bed he did not at once fall to sleep. Always, after a
few moments of wakefulness, while the silence settled down or the wind
moaned through the pines, he ha