On the following day, the fifth of Ralph's stay in Milburn gulch, he was strong enough to walk about more freely. Jim Sholto took him up the trail to show him the excavations. Jim was secretly hoping that in Ralph he would find a workman to take the place of one of the absent boys. Being past the period of heart troubles himself, the danger of introducing a strange and not uncomely young man into his family Eden had not suggested itself to him.

While they were away, Kitty worked about the cabin in a spasmodic way widely differing from her usual deft serenity. She would come to a stand staring before her mistily, a little smile wreathing the corners of her lips; rousing herself with a start, she would fly about for a while as if her life depended on getting done, only to fall into another dream. Absently picking things up, she dropped them in fresh places, and presently started hunting for them again. Snatches of impromptu song welled up from her breast, higher and higher, until her voice trembled and broke. She continually ran to the mirror, by turns anxious, critical, scornful, blushing, reassured by what she saw there. Every three minutes she went to the door and looked up the trail to see if he was coming back.

On one of these journeys she heard her name softly called behind her. Whirling about she beheld approaching by the trail from the river a graceful figure clad in buckskin skirt and blue flannel, her beautiful dark face composed and smiling, her black hair braided and wound about her upheld head. In short, it was her friend and preserver, holding out her hands, and smiling at Kitty wistfully and deprecatingly, just as she had seen her last.

Kitty shrieked with pleasure, and flinging her arms about her friend, dragged her into the cabin, and forced her into a chair.

"Annie! Annie! Annie!" she cried, dropping on her knees beside her. "How sweet of you to come! I wanted to see you so badly! You must stay a week!"

Nahnya shook her head, smiling. "I just brought the dugout back," she said in her soft full voice, that made a pleasant harmony with Kitty's excited accents. "And I brought fresh meat, mountain goat."

"Did you get your own boat all right?" Kitty demanded to know.

"It was only a little broke," said Nahnya. "I fix it easy."

"How could you bring two boats up against the current?" asked Kitty.

"I only bring yours," Nahnya answered. "Mine is down the river on this side where I can get it."

"How will you get it?"

"I will walk along the shore," said Nahnya. "It is not hard walking."

"Now I've got you, I'm not going to let you go in a hurry!" cried Kitty, clinging to her.

"But you're all busy here," objected Nahnya. "The men——"

"My brothers have gone outside," said Kitty. "There is only my father and—and a stranger."

"A stranger?" said Nahnya.

Kitty was not going to blurt out her secret. Her friend's mind must be prepared by delicate stages for its reception. "We have a white man stopping with us," she said very off-hand.

Nahnya was not blind to the self-conscious air and the blush. Her arm tightened affectionately about Kitty.

"Why did you run away from us like you did?" asked Kitty hastily, to create a diversion.

Nahnya shrugged. "I was afraid they thank me, and make a fuss," she said uneasily. "I feel like a fool then."

"You silly dear!" cried Kitty embracing her afresh.

There was a new demonstrativeness in Kitty, a breathless ardour that in itself was enough to tell the other woman something had happened since their parting.

"So you have a visitor," she said teasingly. "I think he is young, yes?"

Kitty tucked in an end of Nahnya's braid that was escaping. "Fairly young," she said.

"You are not so much lonely now I think," murmured Nahnya.

Kitty jumped up. "You must be hungry!" she cried. "I'm forgetting my duties!"

"Not an hour ago I ate," said Nahnya. "I am not hungry."

Kitty developed a great flow of small talk, about the weather, about her brothers, about everything except what was in both their minds. Nahnya let her run on. Under her friend's quiet, kind smile Kitty broke down at last, and running to her, dropped beside her again, and hid her hot face on the dark girl's shoulder.

"Oh, Annie!" she breathed on a trembling, rising inflection.

"Tell me," whispered Nahnya.

"Oh, Annie! It's so strange! I can't! I didn't want to tell you anything. I wanted you to see him, and—and to guess! I have lost myself completely! I am turned inside out! It came so suddenly. I never guessed anything like this! Oh, Annie! He's so strong, so kind, so mysterious, so clever, so dangerous! I am terrified of him. I am wretched when he is out of my sight for a minute!"

Nahnya's face became grave. "Has he said anything?" she whispered.

"Not yet."

"Oh, Kitty dear!" murmured Nahnya. "Be careful! Men——!"

"He's true!" said Kitty hotly. "That I can see in his eyes!"

"You know who he is?" asked Nahnya anxiously. "Where he come from? All about him?"

"No," faltered Kitty. "He's honest!" she cried. "My instinct tells me so. He's good to me. He's careful of me. He doesn't make love to me! Oh, Annie," she went on tremulously, "I've been living in a dream the last few days! All the time he teases me, and I love it because I know he is kind! All the time we laugh, and the hours go by like minutes!"

Once the opening was found, Kitty was not to be stopped from pouring out the whole of her simple heart to her friend. Nahnya held her close, and listened, and her dark head drooped.

Kitty, raising her face at last, was arrested by Nahnya's brooding look upon her. Kitty had never seen eyes so kind and so sad. Their look was as deep as the sea.

"Annie," she said sharply, "what's the matter? Aren't you glad?"

Nahnya pressed the girl convulsively. "I am glad," she murmured, bestirring herself. "I love you. I am glad if you are happy!"

"You were not looking glad," said Kitty.

"It is foolishness," said Nahnya. "Only—I think of me. I am young. I want be happy, too!"

"You will be!" cried Kitty.

Nahnya smiled—with those eyes! "It will never, never come to me!" she murmured.

"Why not?" Kitty demanded to know.

Nahnya laughed away the brooding look. "Foolish!" she cried, "I am jus' jealous! Tell me more! How did he come here?"

Kitty, like every lover, was a little selfish in her happiness. She allowed herself to be reassured by Nahnya's laughter. "He was travelling down the river all alone," she went on eagerly; "and he lost his boat and everything he had in the Stanley rapids, and dislocated his shoulder besides. The pain of it drove him out of his wits. For days he wandered in the bush. Providence directed his footsteps to us, dad says. He pitched headfirst through the doorway there, while I was working. Never in my life was I so frightened!"

Nahnya had succeeded in putting her own sadness out of mind. "You have not tell me what he look like," she said, warm with sympathy.

"He'll be here directly," said Kitty, blushing. "You shall see for yourself."

Springing up, Kitty ran to the door to look up the trail. He was not yet in sight. As she turned back into the room, Nahnya asked:

"What is his name?"

"Ralph Cowdray," said Kitty shyly.

There was silence in the cabin. The brook outside seemed suddenly to increase its brawling. Kitty, in her shyness, turned away her head when she spoke the name, therefore she did not see how Nahnya took it. Kitty waited for Nahnya to speak. The silence became like a weight on them both.

"Don't you think it's a pretty name?" murmured Kitty.

There was no answer. Kitty looked at her friend in surprise. Nahnya had not moved. She still sat quiet in the chair, her hands loose in her lap. But her head had fallen forward on her breast. The oblique glimpse that Ki............