Rise,--four miles from
home."

"Are you sure?" he asked quickly.

"Sure as pop! I used to go huntin' it for smellidge."

"For what?" he said, with a bewildered smile.

"For this,"--she thrust the leaves to his nose and then to her own
pink nostrils; "for--for"--she hesitated, and then with a mischievous
simulation of correctness added, "for the perfume."

He looked at her admiringly. For all her five feet ten inches, what
a mere child she was, after all! What a fool he was to have taken a
resentful attitude towards her! How charming and graceful she looked,
kneeling there beside him!

"Tell me," he said suddenly, in a gentler voice, "what were you laughing
at just now?"

Her brown eyes wavered for a moment, and then brimmed with merriment.
She threw herself sideways, in a leaning posture, supporting herself on
one arm, while with her other hand she slowly drew out her apron string,
as she said, in a demure voice:--

"Well, I reckoned it was jest too killin' to think of you, who didn't
want to talk to me, and would hev given your hull pile to hev skipped
out o' this, jest stuck here alongside o' me, whether you would or no,
for Lord knows how long!"

"But that was last night," he said, in a tone of raillery. "I was tired,
and you said so yourself, you know. But I'm ready to talk now. What
shall I tell you?"

"Anything," said the girl, with a laugh.

"What I am thinking of?" he said, with frankly admiring eyes.

"Yes."

"Everything?"

"Yes, everything." She stopped, and leaning forward, suddenly caught
the brim of his soft felt hat, and drawing it down smartly over his
audacious eyes, said, "Everything BUT THAT."

It was with some difficulty and some greater embarrassment that he
succeeded in getting his eyes free again. When he did so, she had risen
and entered the cabin. Disconcerted as he was, he was relieved to see
that her expression of amusement was unchanged. Was her act a piece
of rustic coquetry, or had she resented his advances? Nor did her next
words settle the question.

"Ye kin do yer nice talk and philanderin' after we've settled whar we
are, what we're goin', and what's goin' to happen. Jest now it 'pears
to me that ez these yere logs are the only thing betwixt us and 'kingdom
come,' ye'd better be hustlin' round with a few spikes to clinch 'em to
the floor."

She handed him a hammer and a few spikes. He obediently set to work,
with little confidence, however, in the security of the