nter snow, the wail of the
geese in their southern migrations.

In these talks she was surprised to learn how full had been his reading.
All through her girlhood she had gone to private schools and had been
tutored by high-paid intellectual aristocrats, yet she found this man
better educated than herself. He had read philosophy and had browsed,
at least, among all the literature of the past; he knew history and a
certain measure of science, and most of all, the association of areas of
his brain were highly developed so that he could see into the motives
and hearts of things much more clearly than she.

In the nights he told her Nature lore, the ways of the living-creatures
that he observed, and in the daytime he illustrated his points from
life. They would take little tramps together through the storm and
snow, going slowly because of the depth of the drifts, and under his
tutelage, the wild life began to reveal to her its most hidden secrets.
Sometimes she shot grouse with her pistol; once a great long-pinioned
goose, resting on the shore of frozen Gray Lake, fell to her aim. She
saw the animals in the marshes, the herds of caribou that are, above all
creatures, natives and habitants of the snow-swept mountains, the
little, lesser hunters such as marten and mink and otter. One night
they heard the wolf pack chanting as they ran along the ridge.

Life was real up here. The superficialities with which she had dealt
before were revealed in their true light. Of all the past material
requisites, only three remained,--food and warmth and shelter. Others
that she did not think she needed--protection, and strength and
discipline--were shown as vitally necessary. Comradeship was needed,
too, the touch of a helping hand in a moment of fear or danger; and
love--the one thing she lacked now--was most necessary of all. It was
not enough just to give love. For years she had poured her adoration
upon Harold, lost it too, reciprocally; and this she might find strength
for the war of life, even a tremulous joy in meeting and surmounting
difficulties.

The snow fell almost incessantly and the tree limbs could hold no more.
The drifts deepened in the still aisles between trunk and trunk. When
the clouds broke through and the stars were like great precious diamonds
in the sky, the cold would drop down like a curse and a scourge, and the
ice began to gather on Grizzly River.

On such nights the Northern Lights flashed and g