ho! People are made for different uses. Some are fit only to shovel
and dig. Others are here simply to decorate the world. Hard world. Hard
work is for those who can't give society anything else, but beauty is
its own excuse for being," he told her breezily.

"Now that's the first compliment you have given me," she pouted
prettily. "I can get them in plenty back in the drawing-rooms where I
am supposed to belong. We're to be real comrades here, and compliments
are barred."

"I wasn't complimenting you," he maintained. "I was merely stating a
principle of art."

"Then you mustn't make your principles of art personal, sir. But since
you have, I'm going to refute the application of your principle and
show how useful I've been. Now, sir, do you know what provisions we
have outside of those you have just brought?"

He knew exactly, since he had investigated during the night. That they
might possibly have to endure a siege of some weeks, he was quite well
aware, and his first thought, after she had gone to sleep before the
fire, had been to make inventory of such provisions as the prospector
had left in his cabin. A knuckle of ham, part of a sack of flour, some
navy beans, and some tea siftings at the bottom of a tin can; these
constituted the contents of the larder which the miner had gone to
replenish. But though the man knew he assumed ignorance, for he saw
that she was bubbling over with the desire to show her forethought.

"Tell me," he begged of her, and after she had done so, he marveled
aloud over her wisdom in thinking of it.

"Now tell me about your trip," she commanded, setting herself tailor
fashion on the rug to listen.

"There isn't much to tell," he smiled "I should like to make an
adventure of it, but I can't. I just went and came back."

"Oh, you just went and came back, did you?" she scoffed. "That won't do
at all. I want to know all about it. Did you find the machine all
right?"

"I found it where we left it, buried in four feet of snow. You needn't
be afraid that anybody will run away with it for a day or two. The
pantry was cached pretty deep itself, but I dug it out."

Her shy glance admired the sturdy lines of his powerful frame. "I am
afraid it must have been a terrible task to get there through the
blizzard."

"Oh, the blizzard is past. You never saw a finer, more bracing morning.
It's a day for the gods," he laughed boyishly.

She could have conceived no Olympian more heroic than he, a