and spread out one of his blankets close to the box and wrapped the
other about the woman's shoulders.

"You sit here while I make a fire," he said.

He piled up dry needles over a precious bit of his birchbark and
struck a flame. In the glowing light he found other fuel, and added to
the fire until the crackling blaze leaped as high as his head. The
woman's face was hidden, and she looked as though she had fallen
asleep in the warmth of the fire. For half an hour Mac-Veigh dragged
in fuel until he had a great pile of it in readiness.

Then he forked out a deep bed of burning coals and soon the odor of
coffee and frying bacon aroused his companion. She raised her head and
threw back the blanket with which he had covered her shoulders. It was
warm where she sat, and she took off her hood while he smiled at her
companionably from over the fire. Her reddish-brown hair tumbled about
her shoulders, rippling and glistening in the fire glow, and for a few
moments she sat with it falling loosely about her, with her eyes upon
MacVeigh. Then she gathered it between her fingers, and MacVeigh
watched her while she divided it into shining strands and pleated it
into a big braid.

"Supper is ready," he said. "Will you eat it there?"

She nodded, and for the first time she smiled at him. He brought bacon
and bread and coffee and other things from his pack and placed them on
a folded blanket between them. He sat opposite her, cross-legged. For
the first time he noticed that her eyes were blue and that there was a
flush in her cheeks. The flush deepened as he looked at her, and she