smiling, her eyes moist, and looked up to find him marvelously
transformed. His even teeth gleamed forth from a brown face that had
become the mirror of a soul as spirited as her own, for the blending of
their voices had brought them into a similar harmony of understanding.

"Oh, _thank_ you," she breathed.

"Thank _you_," he said. "I--I--that's the first time in ages that
I've had the heart to sing. I was hungry for music, I was starving for it.
I've sat in my cabin at night longing for it until my soul fairly ached
with the silence. I've frozen beneath the Northern Lights straining my
ears for the melody that ought to go with them--they must have an
accompaniment somewhere, don't you think so?"

"Yes, yes," she breathed.

"They _must_ have; they are too gloriously, terribly beautiful to be
silent. I've stood in the whispering spruce groves and tried to sing
contentment back into my heart, but I couldn't do it. This is the first
real taste I've had in three years. Three years!"

He was talking rapidly, his blue eyes dancing. Cherry remembered thinking
at dinner that those eyes were of too light and hard a blue for
tenderness. She now observed that they were singularly deep and
passionate.

"Why, I've gone about with a comb and a piece of tissue-paper at my lips
like any kid. I once made a banjo out of a cigar-box and bale wire, and
while I was in the Kougarok I walked ten miles to hear a nigger play a
harmonica. I did all sorts of things to coax music into this country, but