ldn't attack a man
unless cornered or starved. An' Tom is like a big kitten."

The beast raised his great catlike face, with its sleepy, half-shut
eyes, and looked down upon them.

"Shall I call him down?" inquired Dale.

For once Bo did not find her voice.

"Let us--get a little more used to him--at a distance," replied Helen,
with a little laugh.

"If he comes to you, just rub his head an' you'll see how tame he is,"
said Dale. "Reckon you're both hungry?"

"Not so very," returned Helen, aware of his penetrating gray gaze upon
her.

"Well, I am," vouchsafed Bo.

"Soon as the turkey's done we'll eat. My camp is round between the
rocks. I'll call you."

Not until his broad back was turned did Helen notice that the hunter
looked different. Then she saw he wore a lighter, cleaner suit of
buckskin, with no coat, and instead of the high-heeled horseman's boots
he wore moccasins and leggings. The change made him appear more lithe.

"Nell, I don't know what you think, but _I_ call him handsome," declared
Bo.

Helen had no idea what she thought.

"Let's try to walk some," she suggested.

So they essayed that painful task and got as far as a pine log some few
rods from their camp. This point was close to the edge of the park, from
which there was an unobstructed view.

"My! What a place!" exclaimed Bo, with eyes wide and round.

"Oh, beautiful!" breathed Helen.

An unexpected blaze of color drew her gaze first. Out of the black
spruce slopes shone patches of aspens, gloriously red and gold, and low
down along the edge of timber troops of aspens ran out into the park,
not yet so blazing as those above, but purple and yellow and white in
the sunshine. Masses of silver spruce, like trees in moonlight, bordered
the park, sending out here and there an isolated tree, sharp as a
spear, with under-branches close to the ground. Long golden-green grass,
resembling half-ripe wheat, covered the entire floor of the park, gently
waving to the wind. Above sheered the black, gold-patched slopes, steep
and unscalable, rising to buttresses of dark, iron-hued rock. And to
the east circled the rows of cliff-bench, gray and old and fringed,
splitting at the top in the notch where the lacy, slumberous waterfall,
like white smoke, fell and vanished, to reappear in wider sheet of lace,
only to fall and vanish again in the green depths.

It was a verdant valley, deep-set in the mountain walls, wild and sad
and lonesome. The water