pasear when you are tired of the tree."

Teresa looked pleased, but busied herself with arrangements for the
breakfast, while he gathered the fuel for the roaring fire which soon
blazed beside the shattered tree.

Teresa's breakfast was a success. It was a revelation to the young
nomad, whose ascetic habits and simple tastes were usually content with
the most primitive forms of frontier cookery. It was at least a surprise
to him to know that without extra trouble kneaded flour, water, and
saleratus need not be essentially heavy; that coffee need not be boiled
with sugar to the consistency of syrup; that even that rarest delicacy,
small shreds of venison covered with ashes and broiled upon the end of
a ramrod boldly thrust into the flames, would be better and even more
expeditiously cooked upon burning coals. Moved in his practical nature,
he was surprised to find this curious creature of disorganized nerves
and useless impulses informed with an intelligence that did not preclude
the welfare of humanity or the existence of a soul. He respected her
for some minutes, until in the midst of a culinary triumph a big tear
dropped and spluttered in the saucepan. But he forgave the irrelevancy
by taking no notice of it, and by doing full justice to that particular
dish.

Nevertheless, he asked several questions based upon these recently
discovered qualities. It appeared that in the old days of her wanderings
with the circus troupe she had often been forced to undertake this
nomadic housekeeping. But she "despised it," had never done it since,
and always had refused to do it for "him"--the personal pronoun
referring, as Low understood, to her lover, Curson. Not caring to revive
these memories further, Low briefly concluded: "I don't know what you