embarrassment,--a discussion of the fates and fortunes of mutual
acquaintances.

"But I'm tired, Harold," she told him in an hour. "The surprise of
seeing you has been--well, too much for me. I believe I'll go to my
room. It's behind that curtain."

Harold rose eagerly as if something was due him in the moment of
parting; Bill got up in respect to her. But her glance was impartial.
A moment later she was gone.

The first night Bill and Harold made bunks on the floor of the cabin,
but health and propriety decreed that such an arrangement could only be
temporary. They could not put their trust in an immediate deliverance.
They might be imprisoned for weeks to come. And Bill solved the problem
with a single suggestion.

They would build a small cabin for the two men to sleep in. Many times
he had erected such a structure by his own efforts; the two of them
could push it up in a few hours' work.

Harold had no fondness for toil of this kind, but he couldn't see how he
could well avoid it. His indifference to his own fate was quite past by
now. The single moment before Bill had entered the cabin door had
thoroughly wakened his keenest interests and desires; already, he
thought, he had entirely re-established his relations with Virginia. He
was as anxious to make good now as she was to have him. Already he
thought himself once more a man and a gentleman of the great outside
world. His vanity was heightened; the girl's beauty had increased, if
anything, since his departure; and he was more than ready to go through
the adventure to its end. And he didn't dare run the risk of
displeasing Virginia so soon after their meeting.

He knew how she stood on the matter. He had ventured to make one
protest,--and one had been quite enough. "I'm really not much good at
cabin building," he had said. "But I don't see why Bill shouldn't go
work at it. I suppose you hired him for all camp work."

For an instant Virginia had stared at him in utter wonder, and then a
swift look of grave displeasure had come into her face. "You forget,
Harold, that it was Bill that brought you back. The thirty days he was
hired for were gone long ago." But she had softened at once. "It's
your duty to help him, and I'll help him too, if I can."

They had cut short logs, cleaned away the snow, and with the strength of
their shoulders lifted the logs one upon another. With his ax Bill
cunningly cut the saddles, carving them down so tha