feel like riding down
the hill?"

"Sure thing! I'm hungry, and as soon as I am fed I'm ready to start."

Berrie joined the surveyor at the fire.

"If you'll round up our horses, Mr. Nash, I'll rustle breakfast and we'll
get going," she said.

Nash, enthralled, lingered while she twisted her hair into place, then
went out to bring in the ponies.

Wayland came out a little uncertainly, but looking very well. "I think I
shall discourage my friends from coming to this region for their health,"
he said, ruefully. "If I were a novelist now all this would be grist for
my mill."

Beneath his joking he was profoundly chagrined. He had hoped by this time
to be as sinewy, as alert as Nash, instead of which here he sat,
shivering over the fire like a sick girl, his head swollen, his blood
sluggish; but this discouragement only increased Berea's tenderness--a
tenderness which melted all his reserve.

"I'm not worth all your care," he said to her, with poignant glance.

The sun rose clear and warm, and the fire, the coffee, put new courage
into him as well as into the others, and while the morning was yet early
and the forest chill and damp with rain, the surveyor brought up the
horses and started packing the outfit.

In this Berrie again took part, doing her half of the work quite as
dextrously as Nash himself. Indeed, the forester was noticeably confused
and not quite up to his usual level of adroit ease.

At last both packs were on, and as they stood together for a moment, Nash
said: "This has been a great experience--one I shall remember as long as
I live."

She stirred uneasily under his frank admiration. "I'm mightily obliged to
you," she replied, as heartily as she could command.

"Don't thank me, I'm indebted to you. There is so little in my life of
such companionship as you and Norcross give me."

"You'll find it lonesome over at the station, I'm afraid," said she. "But
Moore intends to put a crew of tie-cutters in over there--that will help
some." She smiled.

"I'm not partial to the society of tie-jacks."

"If you ride hard you may find that Moore girl in camp. She was there
when we left." There was a sparkle of mischief in her glance.

"I'm not interested in the Moore girl," he retorted.

"Do you know her?"

"I've seen her at the post-office once or twice; _she_ is not my kind."

She gave him her hand. "Well, good-by. I'm all right now that Wayland can
ride."

He held her hand an instant. "I beli