fell under his glance. "You'll get pretty tired of things over
here. It's one of the lonesomest stations in the forest."

"I'll get lonesome for you; but not for the East." This remark, or rather
the tone in which it was uttered, brought another flush of consciousness
to the girl's face.

"What time is it now?" she asked, abruptly.

He looked at his watch. "Half after eight."

"If father isn't on this side of the divide now he won't try to cross. If
he's coming down the slope he'll be here in an hour, although that trail
is a tolerably tough proposition this minute. A patch of dead timber on a
dark night is sure a nuisance, even to a good man. He may not make it."

"Shall I fire my gun?"

"What for?"

"As a signal to him."

This amused her. "Daddy don't need any hint about direction--what he
needs is a light to see the twist of the trail through those fallen
logs."

"Couldn't I rig up a torch and go to meet him?"

She put her hand on his arm. "You stay right here!" she commanded. "You
couldn't follow that trail five minutes."

"You have a very poor opinion of my skill."

"No, I haven't; but I know how hard it is to keep direction on a night
like this and I don't want you wandering around in the timber. Father can
take care of himself. He's probably sitting under a big tree smoking his
pipe before his fire--or else he's at home. He knows we're all right, and
we are. We have wood and grub, and plenty of blankets, and a roof over
us. You can make your bed under this fly," she said, looking up at the
canvas. "It beats the old balsam as a roof. You mustn't sleep cold
again."

"I think I'd better sit up and keep the fire going," he replied,
heroically. "There's a big log out there that I'm going to bring in to
roll up on the windward side."

"It'll be cold and wet early in the morning, and I don't like to hunt
kindling in the snow," she said. "I always get everything ready the night
before. I wish you had a better bed. It seems selfish of me to have the
tent while you are cold."

One by one--under her supervision--he made preparations for morning. He
cut some shavings from a dead, dry branch of fir and put them under the
fly, and brought a bucket of water from the creek, and then together they
dragged up the dead tree.

Had the young man been other than he was, the girl's purity, candor, and
self-reliance would have conquered him, and when she withdrew to the
little tent and let fall the frail barrier be