to him; her
heart began to beat faster. She wasn't afraid ... she didn't think she
was afraid....

When he came up over the rock again, gone but a few moments, true to his
word, she ran to meet him. She had not been afraid, but engulfed by an
emotion which had seemed not born within her but a mighty emanation of
the woods themselves, and which in its effect was not unlike fear. An
emotion which, now that King was here, was lifted out of her and blown
away like a whiff of smoke before the mountain winds. She looked at him
with new curiosity, wondering at herself, wondering at him that his
presence or absence could make all this world of difference. She saw him
in a new, bright light, as one may see for the first time a stranger on
whom much depends. He was strong, she thought; strong of body, of mind,
of heart. He was like the mountains, which were not complete without
him. His eyes were frank and clear and honest; and yet they were, for
her, filled with mystery. For he was man, and his physical manhood was
splendidly, vigorously vital. She had danced with men and boys, flirted
with them, made friends of a sort with them. Yet none of them had set
her wondering as King did. The repressed curl of his short, crisp hair,
the warm tan of his face and hands and exposed throat, the very gleam of
his perfect teeth, and the flow of the muscles under his shirt--these
things by the sheer trick of opposites sent her fancies scurrying. To
Gratton. How unlike the two men were. And how glad she was that now it
was King coming up over the rock to her.... It had been to Gratton that
she had said: "He is every inch a man!" She stopped abruptly and waited
for him to come to her side.

"We must be going," he said. "You have rested?"

She nodded, and he began gathering up coffee-pot, cups, scraps of paper;
bits of food he left for bird and chipmunk, but the tin cans were
dropped behind an old log and covered over with leaves. She would not
have thought of that; she understood the reason and was glad that their
own arrival here had not been spoiled for them by finding a litter of
other campers' leavings. He stamped out the few embers of their fire,
and, not entirely satisfied, though there was but little danger of
forest fires here in green young June, nevertheless went to the creek
for water and doused the one or two black charred sticks which still
emitted thin wisps of smoke.

"Those men?" queried Gloria when it was clear that he woul