what they were fighting about, and just why they were Jason
himself couldn't quite make out now; but he knew that even now, in
spite of the hand-shaking truce, he would at the snap of a finger
go at the stranger again. And little Mavis knew now that it was
not fear that made the stranger girl scream--and she, too, was
puzzled. She even felt that the scorn in Marjorie's face was not
personal, but she had shrunk from it as from the sudden lash of a
whip. The stranger girl, too, had not blabbed but had even seemed
to smile her forgiveness when Mavis turned, with no good-by, to
follow Jason. Hand in hand the two little mountaineers had crossed
the threshold of a new world that day. Together they were going
back into their own, but the clutch of the new was tight on both,
and while neither could have explained, there was the same thought
in each mind, the same nameless dissatisfaction in each heart, and
both were in the throes of the same new birth.

The sun was sinking when they started up the spur, and
unconsciously Jason hurried his steps and the girl followed hard.
The twin spirals of smoke were visible now, and where the path
forked the boy stopped and turned, jerking his thumb toward her
cabin and his.

"Ef anything happens"--he paused, and the girl nodded her
understanding--"you an' me air goin' to stay hyeh in the mountains
an' git married."

"Yes, Jasie," she said.

His tone was matter-of-fact and so was hers, nor did she show any
surprise at the suddenness of what he said, and Jason, not looking