d it was held by the majority of people
living in settled states. But the majority might be wrong. A hunter
might be vastly different, and vastly more than a tracker and slayer
of game. The mountain world of forest was a mystery to almost all men.
Perhaps Dale knew its secrets, its life, its terror, its beauty, its
sadness, and its joy; and if so, how full, how wonderful must be his
mind! He spoke of men as no better than wolves. Could a lonely life
in the wilderness teach a man that? Bitterness, envy, jealousy, spite,
greed, and hate--these had no place in this hunter's heart. It was not
Helen's shrewdness, but a woman's intuition, which divined that.

Dale rose to his feet and, turning his ear to the north, listened once
more.

"Are you expecting Roy still?" inquired Helen.

"No, it ain't likely he'll turn up to-night," replied Dale, and then he
strode over to put a hand on the pine-tree that soared above where the
girls lay. His action, and the way he looked up at the tree-top and then
at adjacent trees, held more of that significance which so interested
Helen.

"I reckon he's stood there some five hundred years an' will stand
through to-night," muttered Dale.

This pine was the monarch of that wide-spread group.

"Listen again," said Dale.

Bo was asleep. And Helen, listening, at once caught low, distant roar.

"Wind. It's goin' to storm," explained Dale. "You'll hear somethin'
worth while. But don't be scared. Reckon we'll be safe. Pines blow down
often. But this fellow will stand any fall wind that ever was.... Better
slip under the blankets so I can pull the tarp up."

Helen slid down, just as she was, fully dressed except for boots, which
she and Bo had removed; and she laid her head close to Bo's. Dale pulled
the tarpaulin up and folded it back just below their heads.

"When it rains you'll wake, an' then just pull the tarp up over you," he
said.

"Will it rain?" Helen asked. But she was thinking that this moment
was the strangest that had ever happened to her. By the light of the
camp-fire she saw Dale's face, just as usual, still, darkly serene,
expressing no thought. He was kind, but he was not thinking of these
sisters as girls, alone with him in a pitch-black forest, helpless and
defenseless. He did not seem to be thinking at all. But Helen had never
before in her life been so keenly susceptible to experience.

"I'll be close by an' keep the fire goin' all night," he said.

She heard him st