en of the
cave--that soothed him and comforted him. The powers of the wild were
helpless against him now. The wind might hurl down the dead trees, but
the rock of the cavern Wall would stand against them. Even the dreaded
avalanche could roar and thunder on the steep above in vain.

There was no peril in the hushed, breathless forest for him to-night.
This was his stronghold, and none could assail it. And it was a
significant fact that his sense of intimate relationship with the wolf,
Fenris, Was someway lessened. Fenris was a creature of the open forest,
sleeping where he chose on the trail; but his master had found a cavern
home. There was a strange and bridgeless chasm between such breeds as
roamed abroad and those that slept, night after night, in the shelter of
the same walls.

He watched the girl's face, ruddy in the firelight, and it was
increasingly hard to remember that she was of the enemy camp,--the
daughter of his arch foe. To-night she was just a comrade, a habitat of
his own cave.

For the first time since he had found Ezram's body--so huddled and
impotent in the dead leaves--he remembered the solace of tobacco. He
hunted through his pockets, found his pipe and a single tin of the weed,
and began to inhale the fragrant, peace-giving smoke. When he raised his
eyes again he found the girl studying him with intent gaze.

She looked away, embarrassed, and he spoke to put her at ease. "You are
perfectly comfortable, Beatrice?" he asked gently.

"As good as I could expect--considering everything. I'm awfully relieved
that we're off the water."

"Of course." He paused, looking away into the tremulous shadows. "Is
that all? Don't you feel something else, too--a kind of satisfaction?"

The coals threw their lurid glow on her lovely, deeply tanned face.
"It's for you to feel satisfaction, not me. You couldn't expect me to
feel very satisfied--taken from my home--as a hostage--in a feud with my
father. But I think I know what you mean. You mean--the comfort of the
fire, and a place to stay."

"That's it. Of course."

"I feel it--but every human being does who has a fire when this big,
northern night comes down and takes charge of things. It's just an
instinct, I suppose, a comfort and a feeling of safety--and likely only
the wild beasts are exempt from it." Her voice changed and softened, as
her girlish fancy reached ever farther. "I suppose the first men that
you were telling me about on the way out, the