David."

"Baree--David. See!"

Like a bird she had left his side and in an instant, it seemed, was
astride the big grizzly, digging her fingers into Tara's thick
coat--smiling back at him, her radiant hair about her like a cloud,
filled with marvellous red-and-gold fires in the sun.

"Come," she said, holding out a hand to David. "I want Tara to know you
are our friend. Because"--the darkness came into her eyes again--"I have
been _training him_, and I want him to know he must not hurt _you_."

David went to them, little fancying the acquaintance he was about to
make, until Marge slipped off her bear and put her two arms
unhesitatingly about his shoulders, and drew him down with her close in
front of Tara's big head and round, emotionless eyes. For a thrilling
moment or two she pressed her face close to his, looking all the time
straight at Tara, and talking to him steadily. David did not sense what
she was saying, except that in a general way she was telling Tara that
he must never hurt this man, no matter what happened. He felt the warm
crush of her hair on his neck and face. It billowed on his breast for a
moment. The girl's hand touched his cheek, warm and caressing. He made
no movement of his own, except to rise rigidly when she unclasped her
arms from about his shoulders.

"There; he won't hurt you now!" she exclaimed in triumph.

Her cheeks were flaming, but not with embarrassment. Her eyes were as
clear as the violets he had crushed under his feet in the mountain
valleys. He looked at her as she stood before him, so much like a child,
and yet enough of a woman to make his own cheeks burn. And then he saw a
sudden changing expression come into her face. There was something
pathetic about it, something that made him see again what he had
forgotten--her exhaustion, the evidences of her struggle. She was
looking at his pack.

"We haven't had anything to eat since we ran away," she said simply.
"I'm hungry."

He had heard children say "I'm hungry" in that same voice, with the same
hopeful and entreating insistence in it; he had spoken those words
himself a thousand times, to his mother, in just that same way, it
seemed to him; and as she stood there, looking at his pack, he was
filled with a very strong desire to crumple her close in his arms--not
as a woman, but as a child. And this desire held him so still for a
moment that she thought he was waiting for her to explain.

"I fastened our bundle on Tara's