Lying on his back, his head pillowed on a rolled-up blanket, Hubert Stane became aware that the sound of the girl's movements had ceased. He wondered where she had gone to, for it seemed clear to him that she had left the camp, and as the time passed without any sound indicating her presence he began to feel alarmed. She was unused to the woods, it would be easy for her to lose herself and if she did——  
Before the thought was completed he heard the sound of a snapping stick, and knew that she had returned. He smiled with relief and waited for her appearance, but a few minutes passed before she entered the tent, bearing in her hand a tin cup. He looked at her inquiringly.
 
"What have you there, Miss Yardely?"
 
"Balsam," was the reply, "for the cut upon your head. It is rather a bad one, and balsam is good for healing."
 
"But where did you get it?"
 
"From I forget how many trees. There are quite a number of them hereabouts."
 
"I didn't know you knew so much of wood lore," he said smilingly.
 
"I don't," she retorted, quickly. "I am very ignorant of the things that really matter up here. I suppose that balsam would have been the very first thing an Indian girl would have thought of, and would have searched for and at once, but I only thought of it this morning. You see one of my uncle's men had a little accident, and an Indian went out to gather the gum. I happened to see him the on the trees and the gum in a dish and I inquired why he was doing it. He explained to me, and this morning when I saw the cut, it suddenly came to me that if I could find balsam in the neighbourhood it would be helpful. And here it is, and now with your permission I will apply it."
 
"I wonder I never thought of it myself," he answered with a smile. "It is a very healing ungent. Apply to your heart's content, Miss Yardely."
 
, with gentle fingers, the girl applied the balsam and then bound the wound with a strip of torn from a handkerchief. When the operation was finished, still kneeling beside him, she leaned back on her heels to survey the result.
 
"It looks quite professional," she said; "there isn't an Indian girl in the North could have done it better."
 
"There isn't one who could have done it half as well," he answered with a laugh.
 
"Are you sure?" she asked quickly. "How about Miskodeed?"
 
"Miskodeed?" he looked at her wonderingly.
 
"Yes, that beautiful Indian girl I saw you talking with up at Fort Malsun."
 
Stane laughed easily. "I know nothing whatever about her capacity as a healer," he said. "I have only spoken to her on two occasions, and on neither of them did we discuss wounds or the healing of them."
 
"Then——" she began, and broke off in sudden confusion.
 
He looked at her in some surprise. There was a look on her face that he could not understand, a look of gladness and relief.
 
"Yes?" he asked inquiringly. "You were about to say—what?"
 
"I was about to say the girl was a comparative stranger to you!"
 
"Quite correct," he replied. "Though she proved herself a friend on the night I was kidnapped, for I saw her running through the bushes towards my tent, and she cried out to warn me, just as I was struck."
 
"If she knew that you were to be attacked she ought to have warned you before," commented Helen .
 
"Perhaps she had only just made the discovery or possibly she had not been able to find an opportunity."
 
"She ought to have made one," was the answer in uncompromising tones. "Any proper-spirited girl would have done."
 
Stane did not pursue the argument, and a moment later his companion asked: "Do you think her pretty?"
 
"That is hardly the word for Miskodeed," answered Stane. "'Pretty' has an ineffective sort of sound, and doesn't describe her quality. She is beautiful with the wild beauty of the wilds. I never saw an Indian girl approaching her before."
 
Helen Yardely frowned at the frank enthusiasm with which he .
 
"Wild? Yes," she said . "That is the word. She is just a , with, I suppose, a savage's mind. Her beauty is—well, the beauty of the wilds as you say. It is barbaric. There are other forms of beauty that——"
 
She broke off , and the blood ran in her face. Stane saw it and smiled.
 
"Yes," he answered . "That is true. And I think that, however beautiful Miskodeed may be, or others like her, their beauty cannot compare with that of English women."
 
"You think that?" she cried, and then laughed with sudden gaiety as she rose to her feet. "But this is not a debating class, and I've work to do—a house to build, a meal to cook—a hundred tasks appealing to an amateur. I must go, Mr. Stane, and if you are a wise man you will sleep."
 
She left the tent immediately, and as he lay there thinking over the conversation, Stane caught the sound of her voice. She was singing again. He gave a little smile at her sudden gaiety. Evidently she had recovered from the mood of the early morning, and as he listened to the song, his eyes glowed with . She was, he told himself, in unstinted praise, a girl of a thousand, accepting a rather desperate situation with light heart; and facing the difficulties of it with a courage altogether admirable. She was no helpless bread-and-butter miss to fall into despair when jerked out of her accustomed . Thank Heaven for that! As he looked down at his injured leg he to think what would have been the situation if she had been, for he knew that for the time being he was completely in her hands; and rejoiced that they were hands so evidently capable.
 
Then he fell to thinking over the situation. They would be tied down where they were for some weeks, and if care was not exercised the problem of food would grow acute. He must warn her to the food and to it out. His thought was interrupted by her appearance at the tent door. She held in her hand a fishing line that he had purchased at the Post and a packet of hooks.
 
"I go a-fishing," she cried gaily. "Wish me luck?"
 
"Good hunting!" he laughed back. "I hope there is fish in the stream."
 
"! Flocks! Coveys! Schools! What you like. I saw them when I was hunting for the balsam."
 
"That is fortunate," he said quietly. "You know, Miss Yardely, we may have to depend on and feather for food. The stores I brought were only meant to last until I could deliver you to your uncle. We shall have to ."
 
"I have thought of that," she said with a little nod. "I have been carefully through the provisions. But we will make them last, never fear! You don't know what a Diana I am." She smiled again, and withdrew, and an hour later returned with a string of fish which she exhibited with pride. "The water is full of them," she said. "And I've discovered something. A little way from here the stream empties into a small lake which simply with wild . There is no fear of us starving!"
 
"Can you shoot?" he inquired.
 
"I have killed driven in Scotland," she answered with a smile. "But I suppose is valuable up here, and I'm going to try the poacher's way."
 
"The poacher's way?"
 
"Yes. ! There is a roll of wire in your pack. I've watched a warrener at home making rabbit snares, and as there's no particular mystery about the art, and those birds are so unsophisticated, I shall be sure to get some. You see if I don't. But first I must build my house. The open sky is all very well, but it might come on to rain, and then the roofless caravanserai would not be very comfortable. It is a good thing we brought an ax along."
 
She turned away, and after perhaps half an hour he caught the sound of an ax at work in the wood a little way from the tent. The sound reached him for some time, and then ceased; and after a few minutes there came a further sound of burdened steps, followed by that of poles tossed on the ground close to the tent. Then the girl looked in on him. Her face was flushed with her , her forehead was bedewed with a fine sweat, her hair was tumbled and , and he noticed instantly that she had changed her torn blouse and skirt for the clothing which his had burdened her pack with. The grey shirt was a little open at the neck, revealing the beautiful roundness of her throat, the sleeves of it were rolled up above the elbows after the work-man-like fashion of a lumberman, and showed a pair of forearms, white and strong. His eyes as he looked on her.
 
She was radiantly beautiful and strong, he thought to himself, a fit mate for any man who loved strength and beauty in a woman, rather than prettiness and softness, and his admiration found sudden in words.
 
"Miss Yardely, you are wonderful!"
 
The colour in her face deepened suddenly, and there was a quick brightening in her grey eyes.
 
"You think so?" she cried laughing in some confusion.
 
"I certainly do!" he answered .
 
"Why?" she demanded.
 
"Well,&q............