.

"You're--you're dear!" she said.

There was an interlude of about a minute and a half, then she pushed
him away from her.

"Don't!" she said breathlessly. "Please don't!"

"Aren't you going to marry me?" he demanded.

Still crimson, she nodded shyly. He kissed her again.

"Please don't!" she protested.

She fondled the lapels of his coat, quite content to have his arms
about her.

"Why mayn't I kiss you if you're going to marry me?" Arthur demanded.

She looked up at him with an air of demure primness.

"You--you've been eating pigeon," she told him in mock gravity,
"and--and your mouth is greasy!"

XII.

It was two weeks later. Estelle looked out over the now familiar
wild landscape. It was much the same when she looked far away,
but near by there were great changes.

A cleared trail led through the woods to the waterfront, and a
raft of logs extended out into the river for hundreds of feet.
Both sides of the raft were lined with busy fishermen--men and
women, too. A little to the north of the base of the building a
huge mound of earth smoked sullenly. The coal in the cellar had
given out and charcoal had been found to be the best substitute
they could improvise. The mound was where the charcoal was made.

It was heart-breaking work to keep the fires going with charcoal,
because it burned so rapidly in the powerful draft of the furnaces,
but the original fire-room gang had been recruited to several
times its original number from among the towerites, and the work
was divided until it did not seem hard.

As Estelle looked down two tiny figures sauntered across the clearing
from the woods with a heavy animal slung between them. One of them
was using a gun as a walking-stick. Estelle saw the flash of the
sun on its polished metal barrel.

There were a number of Indians in the clearing, watching with
wide-open eyes the activities of the whites. Dozens of birch-bark
canoes dotted the Hudson, each with its load of fishermen,
industriously working for the white people. It had been hard to
overcome the fear in the Indians, and they still paid superstitious
reverence to the whites, but fair dealings, coupled with a constant
readiness to defend themselves, had enabled Arthur to institute a
system of trading for food that had so far proved satisfactory.

The whites had found spare electric-light bulbs valuable currency in
dealing with the redmen. Picture-wire, too, was highly prized. There
was no