e speak nothing."

As she turned from one to the other, addressing each in turn, warm
lights flashed in her eyes through tears, like stars in a deep pool.
Her dark hair rolled back from her smooth oval forehead in heavy
coils, and over her head and knotted under her perfect chin, outlining
its curve, was a silken peasant handkerchief with a crimson border of
the richest hue, while about the neck of her colorless, closely fitted
gown was a piece of exquisite hand-wrought lace. She stood before
them, a vision from the old world, full of innate ladyhood, simple as
a peasant, at once appealing and dominating, impulsive, yet shy. Her
beautiful enunciation, her inverted and quaintly turned English, alive
with poetry, was typical of her whole personality, a sweet and strange
mixture of the high-bred aristocrat and the simple directness and
strength of the peasant.

The two men made stumbling and embarrassed replies. That tender and
beautiful quality of chivalry toward women, belonging by nature to
undefiled manhood, was awakened in them, and as one being, not two,
they would have laid their all at her feet. This, indeed, they
literally did. The small, one-room cabin, which had so long served for
Larry Kildene's palace, was given over entirely to the two women, and
the men made their own abode in the shed where they had slept.

This they accomplished by creating a new room, by extending the
roof-covered space Larry had used for his stable and the storing of
fodder, far enough along under the great overhanging rock to allow of
comfortable bunks, a place to walk about, and a fireplace also. The
labor involved in the making of this room was a boon to Harry King.

Upon the old stone boat which Larry had used for a similar purpose he
hauled stones gathered from the rock ledge and built therewith a
chimney, and with the few tools in the big man's store he made seats
out of hewn logs, and a rude table. This work was left to him by the
older man purposely, while he occupied himself with the gathering in
of the garden stuff for themselves and for the animals. A matter that
troubled his good heart not a little was that of providing for the
coming winter enough food supply for his suddenly acquired family. Of
grain and fodder he thought he had enough for animals kept in
idleness, as he still had stores gathered in previous years for his
own horse. But for these women, he must not allow them to suffer the
least privation.

It was not