in
air.

This would not do at all. The chill wind sweeping down the canon was
searching her insufficient clothing already. He picked her up in his
arms and ran with her toward the house, setting her down in the trench
outside the door. She caught her startled breath and looked at him in
shy, dubious amazement.

"Really you" she was beginning when he cut her short.

"Commanding officer's orders, lieutenant," came briskly from lips that
showed just a hint of a smile.

At once she clicked her heels together, saluted, and wheeled into the
cabin.

From the grimy window she watched his broad-shouldered vigor, waving
her hand whenever his face was turned her way. He worked like a Titan,
reveling in the joy of physical labor, but it was long past dark before
he finished and came striding to the hut.

They made a delightful evening of it, living in the land of Never Was.
For one source of her charm lay in the gay, childlike whimsicality o
her imagination. She believed in fairies and heroes with all her heart,
which with her was an organ not located in her brain. The delicious
gurgle of gaiety in her laugh was a new find to him in feminine
attractions.

There had been many who thought the career of this pirate of industry
beggared fiction, though, few had found his flinty personality a
radiaton of romance. But this convent-nurtured child had made a
discovery in men, one out of the rut of the tailor-made,
convention-bound society youths to whom her experience for the most
part had been limited. She delighted in his masterful strength, in the
confidence of his careless dominance. She liked to see that look of
power in his gray-blue eyes softened to the droll, half-tender,
expression with which he played the game of make-believe. There were no
to-morrows; to-day marked the limit of time for them. By tacit consent
they lived only in the present, shutting out deliberately from their
knowledge of each other, that past which was not common to both. Even
their names were unknown to each other, and both of them were glad that
it was so.

The long winter evening had fallen early, and they dined by
candle-light, considering merrily how much they might with safety eat
and yet leave enough for the to-morrows that lay before them. Afterward
they sat before the fire, in the shadow and shine of the flickering
logs, happy and content in each other's presence. She dreamed, and he,
watching her, dreamed, too. The wild, sweet wonder of