how beautiful it was.

"I am glad," he said, still holding her. "This is how I have dreamed it
would happen. Only it is better than my dreams." And when she pressed
him in silence, he finished, "I have meant we should see our first
sundown here, and our first sunrise."

She wished to help him take the packs from their horses, to make the
camp together with him, to have for her share the building of the fire,
and the cooking. She bade him remember his promise to her that he would
teach her how to loop and draw the pack-ropes, and the swing-ropes
on the pack-saddles, and how to pitch a tent. Why might not the first
lesson be now? But he told her that this should be fulfilled later. This
night he was to do all himself. And he sent her away until he should
have camp ready for them. He bade her explore the island, or take her
horse and ride over to the pasture, where she could see the surrounding
hills and the circle of seclusion that they made.

"The whole world is far from here," he said. And so she obeyed him, and
went away to wander about in their hiding-place; nor was she to return,
he told her, until he called her.

Then at once, as soon as she was gone, he fell to. The packs and saddles
came off the horses, which he turned loose upon the pasture on the main
land. The tent was unfolded first. He had long seen in his mind where it
should go, and how its white shape would look beneath the green of
the encircling pines. The ground was level in the spot he had chosen,
without stones or roots, and matted with the fallen needles of the
pines. If there should come any wind, or storm of rain, the branches
were thick overhead, and around them on three sides tall rocks and
undergrowth made a barrier. He cut the pegs for the tent, and the front
pole, stretching and tightening the rope, one end of it pegged down and
one round a pine tree. When the tightening rope had lifted the canvas to
the proper height from the ground, he spread and pegged down the sides
and back, leaving the opening so that they could look out upon the fire
and a piece of the stream beyond. He cut tufts of young pine and strewed
them thickly for a soft floor in the tent, and over them spread the
buffalo hide and the blankets. At the head he placed the neat sack of
her belongings. For his own he made a shelter with crossed poles and
a sheet of canvas beyond the first pines. He built the fire where its
smoke would float outward from the trees and the tent, an