the fair
hair.

"Don't cry," he had said tenderly; "we'll soon be out of this."

"I know," she returned faintly, meeting his eyes in an effort to be
brave, "but--but--Billy, I'm so unhappy."

"But that's because you're tired out. That's what's the matter.
It's been too rough a trip for you. I told Holt yesterday we must go
slower."

"No," she moaned, "no--it's not that."

"But it will come out all right," he pleaded, "I feel sure of it.
Think of it--to-morrow you will be out of the woods and--and--safely
on your way home." Yet he was not sure of either.

She looked up at him with her brown eyes wide open, her lips
trembling.

"But then _you_ will be gone, Billy!"

His own lips trembled now. That which he had tried all these days to
tell her, she had told him out of her frank young heart. He took one
of her plump, little hands in both his own, holding it as gently as he
would have held a wounded bird. A strange sensation of weakness stole
through him. He bent lower, until his bronzed cheek felt the flush of
her own through the maze of spun gold. Then he sank on his knees in
the damp moss, pressing his lips to the warm fingers.

"God knows!" he burst out, "I have no right to talk to you. I've tried
not to, but I must tell you."

"Don't, Billy--don't!" she sobbed, and she looked into his eyes
through her tears, her limp form in the coarse ulster swaying as if
she was about to faint.

He felt the hot tears strike his hand; saw the dim wonder in her eyes.
Then slowly, still trembling, she sank in his arms.

"And I love you too, Billy," she breathed as she yielded her lips. "I
love you with all my heart--with all my soul!"

None of these happenings did they ever breathe to Alice--time enough
for that when the fear that haunted them all had passed. The mother
had looked at them both in wonder when the two fell into line again,
noting the new spring in their steps and the glad light in the girl's
eyes, but she made no comment.

They had now reached a desolate region of oozy moss and dead trees;
here they camped for the second night. It was a place even a hungry
lynx would have avoided. The stillness was oppressive--a silence that
one could _hear_. Before it grew quite dark this audible hush was
twice broken by the plaintive note of a hermit thrush--a bird so shy
that he leaves his mate, seeking his hermitage among forgotten places.
The place was inanimate--dead like the trees--their skeletons rising
weirdly