he must
know." But each time I saw her face I could not tell her.

Each day she placed a clean white pebble in a little pile at her side.
Presently there were seven.

"John Cowles," she said to me that morning, "bring me our writing, and
bring me my pen. To-day I must sign another letter." And, smiling, she
did so, looking up into my face with love showing on her own. Had the
charcoal been living flame, and had she written on my bare heart, she
could not have hurt me more.

Of course, all the simple duties of our life now devolved upon myself. I
must hunt, and keep the camp, and cook, and bring the fuel; so that much
of the time I was by necessity away from her. Feverishly I explored all
our little valley and exulted that here nature was so kind to us. I
trapped hares in little runways. I made me a bow and some arrows, and
very often I killed stupid grouse with these or even with stones or
sticks, as they sat in the trees; and in bark baskets that I made I
brought home many berries, now beginning to ripen fully. Roots and
bulbs as I found them I experimented with, though not with much success.
Occasionally I found fungi which made food. Flowers also I brought to
her, flowers of the early autumn, because now the snows were beginning
to come down lower on the mountains. In two months winter would be upon
us. In one month we would have snow in the valley.

The little pile of white stones at her side again grew, slowly, slowly.
Letter by letter her name grew invisible form on the scroll of our
covenant--her name, already written, and more deeply, on my heart. On
the fifth week she called once more for her charcoal pen, and signed the
last letter of her Christian name!

"See, there," she said, "it is all my girl name, E-l-l-e-n." I looked at
it, her hand in mine.

"'Ellen!'" I murmured. "It is signature enough, because you are the only
Ellen in the world." But she put away my hand gently and said, "Wait."

She asked me now to get her some sort of cut branch for a crutch, saying
she was going to walk. And walk she did, though resting her foot very
little on the ground. After that, daily she went farther and farther,
watched me as I guddled for trout in the stream, aided me as I picked
berries in the thickets, helped me with the deer I brought into camp.

"You are very good to me," she said, "and you hunt well. You work. You
are a man, John Cowles. I love you."

[Illustration: 'OUT THAR IN CALIFORNY THE HILLS ARE FUL