er more afraid, every day.

"None of them is like you," she said with startling frankness, her eyes
shining at him. "I would love to be with you!"

He turned, then, to look at Tara dozing in the sun.

CHAPTER XIX

They ate, facing each other, on a clean, flat stone that was like a
table. There was no hesitation on the girl's part, no false pride in the
concealment of her hunger. To David it was a joy to watch her eat, and
to catch the changing expressions in her eyes, and the little
half-smiles that took the place of words as he helped her diligently to
bacon and bannock and potatoes and coffee. The bright glow went only
once out of her eyes, and that was when she looked at Tara and Baree.

"Tara has been eating roots all day," she said, "But what will he eat?"
and she nodded at the dog.

"He had a whistler for breakfast," David assured her. "Fat as butter. He
wouldn't eat now anyway. He is too much interested in the bear." She had
finished, with a little sigh of content, when he asked: "What do you
mean when you say that you have trained Tara to kill? Why have you
trained him?"

"I began the day after Brokaw did that--held me there in his arms, with
my head bent back. _Ugh!_ he was terrible, with his face so close to
mine!" She shuddered. "Afterward I washed my face, and scrubbed it hard,
but I could still _feel_ it. I can feel it now!" Her eyes were darkening
again, as the sun darkens when a thunder cloud passes under it. "I
wanted to make Tara understand what he must do after that, so I stole
some of Brokaw's clothes and carried them up to a little plain on the
side of the mountain. I stuffed them with grass, and made a ... what do
you call it? In Indian it is _issena-koosewin_...."

"A dummy," he said.

She nodded.

"Yes, that is it. Then I would go with it a little distance from Tara,
and would begin to struggle with it, and scream. The third time, when
Tara saw me lying under it, kicking and screaming, he gave it a blow
with his paw that ripped it clean in two! And after that...."

Her eyes were glorious in their wild triumph.

"He would tear it into bits," she cried breathlessly. "It would take me
a whole day to mend it again, and at last I had to steal more clothes. I
took Hauck's this time. And soon they were gone, too. That is just what
Tara will do to a man--when I fight and scream!"

"And a little while ago you were ready to jump at me, and fight and
scream!" he reminded her, smiling