There was a fine, rollicking air to it. The careless note in their
voices, the jovial lilt of their song, made her envious. They at least
had their destiny, limited as it might be and cast along rude ways,
largely under their own control.

Her wandering gaze at length came to rest on a tent top showing in the
brush northward from the camp. She saw two canoes drawn up on the beach
above the lash of the waves, two small figures playing on the gravel,
and sundry dogs prowling alongshore. Smoke went eddying away in the
wind. The Siwash camp where Katy John hailed from, Miss Benton supposed.

She had an impulse to skirt the bay and view the Indian camp at closer
range, a notion born of curiosity. She debated this casually, and just
as she was about to rise, her movement was arrested by a faint crackle
in the woods behind. She looked away through the deepening shadow among
the trees and saw nothing at first. But the sound was repeated at odd
intervals. She sat still. Thoughts of forest animals slipped into her
mind, without making her afraid. At last she caught sight of a man
striding through the timber, soundlessly on the thick moss, coming
almost straight toward her.

He was scarcely fifty yards away. Across his shoulders he bore a
reddish-gray burden, and in his right hand was a gun. She did not move.
Bowed slightly under the weight, the man passed within twenty feet of
her, so close that she could see the sweat-beads glisten on that side of
his face, and saw also that the load he carried was the carcass of a
deer.

Gaining the beach and laying the animal across a boulder, he
straightened himself up and drew a long breath. Then he wiped the sweat