"Well, Jack," she replied, a faint mocking smile curving the corners of her
mouth, "when it comes to that, we _did_ elope, you'll have to acknowledge.
And we weren't married for quite a long time afterward."

"We got married as soon as we could, didn't we?" he cried indignantly. "Was
it our fault that we didn't get married sooner? And what difference did it
make, anyway?"

"Now don't get all worked up," she chided. "I'm just telling you why, in
the eyes of some of these people, I'm not 'respectable.' You asked me, you
know."

"Go on," he conceded to this last.

"Well, we ran away and weren't married. That's item one. Then perhaps
you've forgotten that I sat on lookout for some of your games in the early
days in the mining camps?"

"Forgotten?" said Sherwood, the light of reminiscence springing to his
eyes.

The same light had come into hers.

"Will you _ever_ forget," she murmured, "the camps by the summer streams,
the log towns, the lights, the smoke, the freedom--the comradeship--"

"Homesick for the old rough days?" he teased.

"Kind of," she confessed. "But it wasn't 'respectable'--a--well, a _fairly_
good-looking woman in a miner's saloon."