nd certainly
none with so compelling a vitality. "Such a warm, kind light in them!"
she thought of the eyes others had found hard and calculating.

It was lucky that the lunch the automobilists had brought from
Avalanche was ample and as yet untouched. The hotel waiter, who had
attended to the packing of it, had fortunately been used to reckon with
outdoor Montana appetites instead of cloyed New York ones. They
unpacked the little hamper with much gaiety. Everything was frozen
solid, and the wine had cracked its bottle.

"Shipped right through on our private refrigerator-car. That
cold-storage chicken looks the finest that ever happened. What's this
rolled up in tissue-paper? Deviled eggs and ham sandwiches AND caviar,
not to speak of claret frappe. I'm certainly grateful to the gentleman
finished in ebony who helped to provision us for this siege. He'll
never know what a tip he missed by not being here to collect."

"Here's jelly, too, and cake," she said, exploring with him.

"Not to mention peaches and pears. Oh, this is luck of a special brand!
I was expecting to put up at Starvation Camp. Now we may name it Point
Plenty."

"Or Fort Salvation," she suggested shyly. "Because you brought me here
to save my life."

She was such a child, in spite of her charming grown-up airs, that he
played make-believe with a zest that surprised himself when he came to
think of it. She elected him captain of Fort Salvation, with full power
of life and death over the garrison, and he appointed her second in
command. His first general order was to put the garrison on two meals a
day.

She clapped her little hands, eyes sparkling with excitement. "Are we
really snow-bound? Must we go on half-rations?"

"It is the part of wisdom, lieutenant," he answered, smiling at her
enthusiasm. "We don't know how long this siege is going to last. If it
should set in to snow, we may be here several days before the
relief-party reaches us." But, though he spoke cheerfully, he was aware
of sinister possibilities in the situation. "Several weeks" would have
been nearer his real guess.

They ate breakfast at the shelf-table nailed in place underneath the
western window. They made a picnic of it, and her spirits skipped upon
the hilltops. For the first time she ate from tin plates, drank from a
tin cup, and used a tin spoon the worse for rust. What mattered it to
her that the teapot was grimy and the fryingpan black with soot! It was
all part of