men, who had stepped out, looked at each other as she
said this and made signs.

"Why, Carrie, are you afraid here! You are all of a tremble!" said the
boy, as she clung close to him, when they turned back.

"Johnny," said the girl eagerly, almost wildly, as she looked around,
"if men were to come to take us to that Reservation, what would you do?"

"What would I do? I would kill 'em! Kill 'em dead, Carrie. I would hold
you to my heart so, with this arm, and with this I would draw my pistol
so, and kill 'em dead."

The two heads of the man-hunters disappeared behind the rocks. The boy
pushed back the girl's black, tumbled stream of hair from her brow, and
kissing her very tenderly, he went aside and sat down; for he was very,
very weary.

A twilight squirrel stole out from the thicket into the clearing and
then darted back as if it saw something only partly concealed beyond.
The two children saw this, and looked at each other half alarmed. Then
the girl, as if to calm the boy--who had grown almost a man in the past
few weeks--began to talk and chatter as if she had seen nothing,
suspected nothing.

"When the Winter comes, Johnny, we can't stay here; we would starve."

"Carrie, do the birds starve? Do the squirrels starve? What did God make
us for if we are to starve?"

All this time the two men had been stealing out from their hiding-place,
as if resolved to pounce upon and seize the girl before Forty-nine
arrived. The leader had signaled and made signs to his companion back
there in the gloaming, for they dared not speak lest they should be
heard; and now they advanced stealthily, guns in hand, and now they
fell back to wait a better chance; and just as they were about to
spring upon the two from behind, the snowy white head of old Forty-nine
blossomed above the rocks, and his red face, like a great opening
flower, beamed in upon the little party, while the good-natured old man
puffed and blowed as he fanned himself with his hat and sat down his keg
of provisions. And still he puffed and blowed, as if he would never
again be able to get his breath. The two men stole back.

"And Forty-nine likes to climb the mountains too, don't he? Good for his
health. See, what a color he's got! And see how fat he is! Good for your
health, ain't it, papa Forty-nine?"

But the good old miner was too hot and puffy to answer, as the merry
little girl danced with delight around him.

"Why, it makes you blow, don't it? Strange