ed.

"In a way, it was a great adventure for you to come out here alone over
the new road," he said.

"I thought so last night," she confessed with a smile. "When I reached
the settlement and found I could get no farther, I was really scared.
Now, however, all my fears have gone. I suppose it's the sunshine and
this glorious air."

"Well, we had better get on. I'm afraid you'll have to walk a while."

She let him lift her down, with no sign of prudishness or coquetry, and
he led the horse uphill while she followed. Her attitude pleased him,
because he had no desire for philandering, although he was content to act
as protector and guide. Still, while he adapted his pace to the girl's he
thought about her. Her rather shabby attire and scanty baggage hinted
that she had not been used to affluence; but she showed signs of
possessing a vigorous, well-trained mind, and he decided that she must
have been a teacher.

When they reached the top of the ascent, she mounted and they went on
among scattered clumps of pines and across a tableland as fast as he
could travel, because it seemed prudent to place as long a distance as
possible between them and the settlement. He had left the place with a
valuable horse and saddle which he had not paid for, and he was very
dubious whether the livery-stable keeper would be satisfied with the
promises he had left. Accordingly he only stopped for half an hour at
noon; and evening was near when he helped the girl down and picketed the
horse beside a small birch bluff, and set up the tent.

"There are provisions in my pack and you might lay out supper, but I
don't think we'll make a fire to-night," he said. "I'll be back in about
half an hour; I want to see what lies beyond the top of yonder ridge."

She let him go, and he climbed between slender birches to the summit of a
long rise, where he lay down and lighted his pipe. From his lofty
position he commanded a wide sweep of country--hills whose higher slopes
were still bathed in warm light, valleys filled with cool blue shadow,
straggling ranks of somber pines. The air was sharp and wonderfully
bracing; the wilderness, across which he could wander where he would,
lured him on. Irresponsible and impatient of restraint, as he was, he
delighted in the openness and solitude. For all that, he concentrated his
gaze on one particular strip of bare hillside. At its foot ran the gorge
they had crossed, but it had now grown narrow and precipitous,