ancing about her, persisted in
forming themselves into curls again. In an hour they reached the valley,
and for a few moments they sat down to rest, while Tara foraged among
the rocks for marmots. It was a wonderful valley into which they had
come. From where they sat, it was like an immense park. Green slopes
reached almost to the summits of the mountains, and to a point half way
up these slopes--the last timber line--clumps of spruce and balsam trees
were scattered over the green as if set there by hands of men. Some of
these timber patches were no larger than the decorative clumps in a city
park, and others covered acres and tens of acres; and at the foot of the
slopes on either side, like decorative fringes, were thin and unbroken
lines of forest. Between these two lines of forest lay the open valley
of soft and undulating meadow, dotted with its purplish bosks of
buffalo-, willow-, and mountain-sage, its green coppices of wild rose
and thorn, and its clumps of trees. In the hollow of the valley ran a
stream.

And this was her home! She was telling him about it as they sat there,
and he listened to her, and watched her bird-like movements, without
breaking in to ask questions which the night had shaped in his mind. She
pointed out gray summits on which she had stood. Off there, just visible
in the gray mist of early sunshine, was the mountain where she had found
Tara five years ago--a tiny cub who must have lost his mother. Perhaps
the Indians had killed her. And that long, rock-strewn slide, so steep
in places that he shuddered when he thought of what she had done, was
where she and Tara had climbed over the range in their flight. She
chose the rocks so that Tara would leave no trail. He regarded that
slide as conclusive evidence of the very definite resolution that must
have inspired her. A fit of girlish temper would not have taken her up
that rock slide, and in the night. He thought it time to speak of what
was weighing upon his mind.

"Listen to me, Marge," he said, pointing toward the red mountain ahead
of them. "Off there, you say, is the Nest. What are we going to do when
we arrive there?"

The little lines gathered between her eyes again as she looked at him.

"Why--tell them," she said.

"Tell them what?"

"That you've come for me, and that we're going away, _Sakewawin_."

"And if they object? If Brokaw and Hauck say you cannot go?"

"We'll go anyway, _Sakewawin_."

"That's a pretty name you've