d near it he
stood the cooking things and his provisions, and made this first supper
ready in the twilight. He had brought much with him; but for ten minutes
he fished, catching trout enough. When at length she came riding over
the stream at his call, there was nothing for her to do but sit and eat
at the table he had laid. They sat together, watching the last of the
twilight and the gentle oncoming of the dusk. The final after-glow of
day left the sky, and through the purple which followed it came slowly
the first stars, bright and wide apart. They watched the spaces between
them fill with more stars, while near them the flames and embers of
their fire grew brighter. Then he sent her to the tent while he cleaned
the dishes and visited the horses to see that they did not stray from
the pasture. Some while after the darkness was fully come, he rejoined
her. All had been as he had seen it in his thoughts beforehand: the
pines with the setting sun upon them, the sinking camp-fire, and now the
sound of the water as it flowed murmuring by the shores of the island.

The tent opened to the east, and from it they watched together their
first sunrise. In his thoughts he had seen this morning beforehand also:
the waking, the gentle sound of the water murmuring ceaselessly, the
growing day, the vision of the stream, the sense that the world was shut
away far from them. So did it all happen, except that he whispered to
her again:-- "Better than my dreams."

They saw the sunlight begin upon a hilltop; and presently came the sun
itself, and lakes of warmth flowed into the air, slowly filling the
green solitude. Along the island shores the ripples caught flashes from
the sun.

"I am going into the stream," he said to her; and rising, he left her in
the tent. This was his side of the island, he had told her last night;
the other was hers, where he had made a place for her to bathe. When
he was gone, she found it, walking through the trees and rocks to the
water's edge. And so, with the island between them, the two bathed in
the cold stream. When he came back, he found her already busy at their
camp. The blue smoke of the fire was floating out from the trees,
loitering undispersed in the quiet air, and she was getting their
breakfast. She had been able to forestall him because he had delayed
long at his dressing, not willing to return to her unshaven. She looked
at his eyes that were clear as the water he had leaped into, and at his