h which he had built the
pallet. He had simply come to the conclusion that she was paying a high
price for her father's sins; and from now on he intended to make all
things as easy as he could for her. Moreover, she had been a sportswoman
of the rarest breed and merited every kindness he could do for her.

He was not half so careful with his own bed, built sixty feet on the
opposite side of the fire. He threw it together rather hastily. And when
he walked back to the fire he found an amazing change.

Already Beatrice had established sovereignty over the little patch of
ground they had chosen for the camp,--and the wilderness had drawn back.
This spot was no longer mere part of the far-spreading, trackless wilds.
It had been set off and marked so that the wilderness creatures could no
longer mistake it for part of their domain. Over the fire she had
erected a cooking rack; and water was already boiling in a small bucket
suspended from it. In another container a fragrant mixture was in the
process of cooking. She had spread one of the blankets on the grass for
a tablecloth.

As twilight lowered they sat down to their simple meal,--tea, sweetened
with sugar, and vegetables and meat happily mingled in a stew. It was
true that the vegetable end was held up by white grains of rice alone,
but the meat was the white, tender flesh of grouse, permeating the
entire dish with its tempting flavor. As a whole, the stew was greatly
satisfying to the inner man.

"I wish I'd brought more tea," Ben complained, as he sipped that most
delightful of all drinks, the black tea beloved of the northern men.

"You a woodsman, and don't know how to remedy that!" the girl responded.
"I know of a native substitute that's almost as good as the real
article."

About the embers of the fire they sat and watched the tremulous wings of
night close round them. The copse grew breathless. The distant trees
blended into shadow, the nearer trunks dimmed and finally faded; the
large, white northern stars emerged in infinite troops and companies,
peering down through the rifts in the trees. Here about their fire they
had established the domain of man. For a few short hours they had routed
the forces of the wilderness; but the foe pressed close upon them. Just
at the fluctuating ring of firelight he waited, clothed in darkness and
mystery,--the infinite, brooding spirit of the ancient forest.

They had never known such silence, broken only by the prolonge