Mona Guyon was not afraid. She was startled, and thrilled by an instant intuitive sensing of the unusual and the significant in the man's unexpected appearance. Yet the color did not leave her cheeks nor did a cry come to her lips. She thrust the baby beavers from her lap and rose unexcitedly to her feet, tall, slim and amazingly beautiful.

She was looking steadily at the man, and as she looked her heart beat a little faster, for the wilderness had taught her a quick and definite understanding of the story she saw written in the wild face among the willows. Its tragedy flashed upon her before her parted lips had found words—hunger, sickness, the emaciation and weakness of a man who found less discomfort upon his hands and knees than upon his feet.

As she looked at him a change came into his face that the man himself could feel as there swept over him a slow and inundating sense of shame. Every instinct of chivalry in him revolted at the ridiculous and alarming figure he must be making of himself. But even in this moment of surprise and distress he did not entirely lose his sense of humor. He tried to smile. The effort was nothing short of pathos.

[194]

"I beg your pardon," he said as he rose a little unsteadily to his feet and came out of the willows. His raggedness and the coarse stubble on his face could not conceal the consciousness of pride with which he straightened himself and bowed to her. "I have come upon you like a wolf, and I know I look like a wolf. But I assure you I am as harmless as a sheep, and if you don't mind dividing your carrots with me——" He nodded toward the little yellow pile of carrots she had brought for her beaver pets.

His voice was pleasant. It made her think of Father Albanel, and as he spoke a smile was in his eyes and on his pale lips. She went quickly to his side and put a hand on his arm. Its firm young touch seemed to steady him.

"What has happened?" she asked. "You look——"

"Sick—and a little mad," he finished for her, when she hesitated. "But I'm mostly hungry, and if I may have the carrots——"

She helped him to the foot of the tree and he dropped down beside it with a weakness that made him hunch his shoulders in disgust.

"I have something better than carrots," she said. "Please sit here and I will get it."

She hurried across the little meadow to a deeper shade of thick-growing jack pines on the farther side, and the man turned his head to follow her movements with his eyes. Her beauty was twisting at something in his heart. A long time ago he had known someone like[195] her. The slim figure, walking swiftly across the open, took him back twenty years, and he could almost hear a sweet voice calling his name, and in a place very much like this, with the coolness of the wilderness all about and the sun shining through the trees. His hand touched the scrub of beard on his face and he shivered. The thought came to him that the girl was afraid of him and was running away. As she disappeared among the banksians he reached for one of the raw carrots and began to eat it.

Mona returned so quietly that he did not hear her until she was at his side. She brought a basket and a small pail of cold spring-water. She spread a napkin on his lap and loaded it with the contents of the basket. He was sensitively conscious of her eyes upon him and he tried not to appear ravenous as he began with meat and bread.

"I'm spoiling your picnic, child," he said, speaking to her feebly like a man who was very old. "I'm sorry."

"You're not spoiling it," she cried, leaning toward him with a gesture full of sweet tenderness. "Oh, I have been so happy today—God has made me happier by bringing me here in time to help you!"

"Happy," he whispered, as if to himself. "It is wonderful to be happy. I have known—what it is."

It was her struggle to appear natural now as he ate. She had never been so intimately close to starvation and pathos and weakness in man.

[196]

"Were you lost?" she asked.

He caught quickly at her suggestion. "Yes, lost—in the woods and the swamps between the railroad and here. I was trying to find a place called Five Fingers."

She gave a little exclamation. "I'm from Five Fingers. It is not far. Uncle Pierre calls it a mile and a half."

Mona wondered at the strange silence which came over the man, and the suddenness with which his hunger seemed to be satisfied.

"You have been an angel to me," he said, when he had finished. "And—things love you. Even the wild creatures." He was looking at the baby beavers, humped into furry balls at the edge of the pond. "You called one of them Peterkin, and the old beaver Peter. I wonder—why?"

"And there is a bear cub I call Pete," she added. "It is because—"

"Yes——"

Her eyes were shining.

"Because I am going to marry a man whose name is Peter."

It did not seem strange to her that she should be confessing the secret of her happiness to a man she had never seen before.

There was something in his eyes which made her want him to know, a mysterious gentleness that seemed to plead for her confidence and her friendship. It gave her a pleasurable thrill to tell someone that she loved[197] Peter and was going to be his wife. And this man was unlike any other who had ever come from the outside world into the wilderness isolation of Five Fingers.

In his rags and misfortune and his whitening hair and pale, thin face, she saw something which stirred more than her pity. And it was more than faith.

Just what it was, in that moment, she did not know. She was puzzled by the tremor which ran through his body coincident with her mention of Peter.

"And this Peter——" he began feverishly. The words seemed to choke in his throat, and he passed a hand over his eyes as if to wipe away a mist. Then he said: "He is a lucky lad. Is his name Peter McRae?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"And—you love him?"

She nodded. "I was only thirteen then, but I loved him the first day he came to Five Fingers and fought Aleck Curry for me. Aleck was a bully and was pulling my hair."

The mysterious stranger bent his gray head so that she could not see his face. "That was six years ago last May, in the afternoon. And—Peter—did he ever tell you about—his father?"

"Yes, that same night. It was in the edge of the forest, and it was growing dark. He had brought a letter from his father to Simon McQuarrie, and Simon had told him the truth. He said his father had killed a man—accidentally—a long time ago, but that the[198] police wouldn't believe it was an accident and were after him, and would hang him if he was caught. And ever since then——"

She was at his side, staring at him as he slowly raised his head, the color gone from her face and her white throat beating with the sudden mad pounding in her breast. "Ever since that night—that very hour—we have prayed together for Peter's father to come back. And you—you——"

He could not escape the wild questioning in her eyes and their demand to be answered.

"Would you have me Peter's father?" he asked uncertainly. "This way—an outlaw—ragged—dirty—a beggar——"

There was an almost tragic note of hopefulness in his voice.

"Yes," she cried, her voice breaking in excited entreaty from her lips. "If you are Peter's father, tell me. We have waited. And I have told him you would come. Oh, I have promised him that, and have asked God every night to make it come true. Are you——" Her hands were reaching out to him.

"Yes, I am Peter's father."

There was no flash of joy or pride in his acknowledgment of the truth. His head sank upon his breast as if a sudden weariness had overcome him, and a moan of protest was in his voice. And then a thing happened which swept the bitterness and grief from Donald McRae's heart. He caught a glimpse of Mona's face,[199] gloriously flushed in this moment of her answered prayer; and then her arms were about him, her soft cheek against his rough stubble of beard, and for an instant he felt the swift pressure of her lips against his.

He raised his hand and touched her hair. "Child," he cried brokenly, "dear child——"

She sprang up from him, half laughing and half sobbing, and ran out from under the mountain ash tree and stood in the edge of the clearing. With her hands in the form of a megaphone she called: "Peter! Peter! Oh, Peter!"

With a protesting cry he climbed to his feet and went to her. She saw the white, almost frightened look in his face and eyes. "Don't do that!" he exclaimed. "For God's sake—don't! Peter must not know I am here."

In her amazement her hands fell slowly from her face to her side. "Why?" she demanded.

"Because——" He stopped, listening to a voice that came faintly from out of the forest.

"That is Peter," said Mona. "We are going to eat our picnic supper here—at the pool."

"It is Peter—coming——"

"Yes."

He tried to breathe steadily, tried to speak calmly as he took her hand and stroked it with nervous gentleness. "What is your name?"

"Mona Guyon."

[200]

"Mona—Guyon. It is a pretty name. And you are sweet and good and beautiful. Peter's mother was like you. And—I am glad you love my boy." A new strength seemed to possess him.

The voice came again out of the forest, a little nearer this time, and Donald McRae held the girl's hand closer, and a tremor went through him as he smiled at her in the way he used to smile at his boy in the old days of their comradeship and happiness.

"That is my call," he said evenly. "Peter's mother and I used it twenty years ago, and afterward I taught it to Peter. It carries a long distance in the woods."

It was not his poverty and his weakness that affected Mona most. Something more than pity overwhelmed her—his forced calmness, the strange light in his eyes, the almost superhuman fight he was making to rise up out of his rags and his misery in the most tragic hours that could have come into his life. His words and his appearance set her heart pounding fiercely. She was a little frightened and wanted to put her arms about him again and hold him until Peter came. What did he mean?

"Why mustn't Peter know you are here?" she demanded. "Why?"

He led her back in the willows. In a moment they were hidden.

"Are you brave enough to hear? And do you love Peter enough to help—me?" he asked her.

"Yes, yes, I will help you."

[201]

He stood so that he could look out of the willows and across the meadow through which Peter would come. A moment of despair and hopelessness twisted the muscles of his face.

"He must not see me," he said in a voice that was hardly more than a strained whisper. "Child, you must understand—you most of all. Don't you know why I ran away from Peter that day near Five Fingers, and sent him on to Simon McQuarrie? It was so Peter might have a chance in life that he never could have with me, even if I escaped the law. I, too, have prayed—every day and every night through the years that have been more than eternities for me; prayed that good and happiness might come to him, and that in time even the memory of his father would wear away. But never for an instant have I been able to forget my boy. He has been a part of my soul and body, walking with me, sleeping with me, sitting with me beside my hidden camp-fires at night, until at times the desire to see him once more was so strong in me that ............