ation. Between them they
threw wide every door and window. The cool evening wind filled the
place with sweet, pine-scented air. Then Bill started a blaze roaring
in the black-mouthed fireplace--to make it look natural, he said--and
went out to hobble his horses for the night.

In the morning they began to unpack their household goods. Rugs and
bearskins found each its accustomed place upon the floor. His books
went back on the shelves. With magical swiftness the cabin resumed its
old-home atmosphere. And that night Bill stretched himself on the
grizzly hide before the fireplace, and kept his nose in a book until
Hazel, who was in no humor to read, fretted herself into something
approaching a temper.

"You're about as sociable as a clam," she broke into his absorption at
last.

He looked up in surprise, then chucked the volume carelessly aside, and
twisted himself around till his head rested in her lap.

"Vot iss?" he asked cheerfully. "Lonesome? Bored with yourself?
Ain't I here?"

"Your body is," she retorted. "But your spirit is communing with those
musty old philosophers."

"Oh, be good--go thou and do likewise," he returned impenitently. "I'm
tickled to death to be home. And I'm fairly book-starved. It's fierce
to be deprived of even a newspaper for twelve months. I'll be a year
getting caught up. Surely you don't feel yourself neglected because I
happen to have my nose stuck in a book?"

"Of course not!" she denied vigorously. The childish absurdity of her
attitude struck her with sudden force. "Still, I'd like you to talk to
me once in a while."

"'Of shoes and ships and sealing wax; of cabbages and kings,'" he flung
at her mischievously. "I'll make music; that's better than mere words."

He picked up his mandolin and tuned the strings. Like most things
which he set out to do, Bill had mastered his instrument, and could
coax out of it all the harmony of which it was capable. He seemed to
know music better than many who pass for musicians. But he broke off
in the midst of a bar.

"Say, we could get a piano in here next spring," he said. "I just
recollected it. We'll do it."

Now, this was something that she had many a time audibly wished for.
Yet the prospect aroused no enthusiasm.

"That'll be nice," she said--but not as she would have said it a year
earlier. Bill's eyes narrowed a trifle, but he still smiled. And
suddenly he stepped around behind her chair, put both hands