After that she busied herself in a way that was a constantly growing pleasure to him.  She took possession at once of pots and pans and kettles.  She lost no time in impressing upon both Aldous and MacDonald the fact that while she was their docile follower on the trail she was to be at the head of affairs in camp.  While they were straightening out the outfit, hobbling the horses, and building a fire, she rummaged through the panniers and took stock of their provisions.  She bossed old Donald in a manner that made him fairly glow with pleasure.  She bared her white arms to the elbows and made biscuits for the “reflector” instead of bannock, while Aldous brought water from the lake, and MacDonald cut wood.  Her cheeks were aflame.  Her eyes were laughing, joyous, happy.  MacDonald seemed years younger.  He obeyed her like a boy, and once Aldous caught him looking at her in a way that set him thinking again of those days of years and years ago, and of other camps, and of another woman—­like Joanne.

MacDonald had thought of this first camp—­and there were porterhouse steaks for supper, which he had brought packed in a kettle of ice.  When they sat down to the meal, Joanne was facing a distant snow-capped ridge that cut the skyline, and the last of the sun, reflected from the face of the mountain on the east, had set brown-and-gold fires aglow in her hair.  They were partly through when her eyes rested on the distant snow-ridge.  Aldous saw her looking steadily.  Suddenly she pointed beyond him.

“I see something moving over the snow on that mountain!” she cried a little excitedly.  “It is hurrying toward the summit—­just under the skyline!  What is it?”

Aldous and MacDonald looked toward the ridge.  Fully a mile away, almost even with the skyline now, a small dark object was moving over the white surface of the snow.

“It ain’t a goat,” said MacDonald, “because a goat is white, and we couldn’t see it on the snow.  It ain’t a sheep, ‘cause it’s too dark, an’ movin’ too slow.  It must be a bear, but why in the name o’ sin a bear would be that high, I don’t know!”

He jumped up and ran for his telescope.

“A grizzly,” whispered Joanne tensely.  “Would it be a grizzly, John?”

“Possibly,” he answered.  “Indeed, it’s very likely.  This is a grizzly country.  If we hurry you can get a look at him through the telescope.”

MacDonald was already studying the object through his long glass when they joined him.

“It’s a bear,” he said.

“Please—­please let me look at him,” begged Joanne.

The dark object was now almost on the skyline.  Half A minute more and it would pass over and out of sight.  MacDonald still held his eye to the telescope, as though he had not heard Joanne.  Not until the moving object had crossed the skyline, and had disappeared, did he reply to her.

“The light’s bad, an’ you couldn’t have made him out very well,” he said.  “We’ll show you plenty o’ grizzlies, an’ so near you won’t want a telescope.  Eh, Johnny?”