“You will be as cozy as can be in that,” he said.

“And you, John?” she asked, her face flushing rosily.  “I haven’t seen another tent for you and Donald.”

“We don’t sleep in a tent during the summer,” he said.  “Just our blankets—­out in the open.”

“But—­if it should rain?”

“We get under a balsam or a spruce or a thick cedar.”

A little later they stood beside the fire.  It was growing dusk.  The distant snow-ridge was swiftly fading into a pale and ghostly sheet in the gray gloom of the night.  Up that ridge Aldous knew that MacDonald was toiling.

Joanne put her hands to his shoulders.

“Are you sorry—­so very, very sorry that you let me come, John?”

“I didn’t let you come,” he laughed softly, drawing her to him.  “You came!”

“And are you sorry?”

“No.”

It was deliciously sweet to have her tilt up her head and put her soft lips to his, and it was still sweeter when her tender hands stroked his cheeks, and eyes and lips smiled their love and gladness.  He stood stroking her hair, with her face laying warm and close against him, and over her head he stared into the thickening darkness of the spruce and cedar copses.  Joanne herself had piled wood on the fire, and in its glow they were dangerously illuminated.  With one of her hands she was still caressing his cheek.

“When will Donald return?” she asked.

“Probably not until late,” he replied, wondering what it was that had set a stone rolling down the side of the mountain nearest to them.  “He hunted until dark, and may wait for the moon to come up before he returns.”

“John——­”

“Yes, dear?——­” And mentally he measured the distance to the nearest clump of timber between them and the mountain.

“Let’s build a big fire, and sit down on the pannier canvases.”

His eyes were still on the timber, and he was wondering what a man with a rifle, or even a pistol, might do at that space.  He made a good target, and MacDonald was probably several miles away.

“I’ve been thinking about the fire,” he said.  “We must put it out, Joanne.  There are reasons why we should not let it burn.  For one thing, the smoke will drive any game away that we may hope to see in the morning.”

Her hands lay still against his cheek.

“I—­understand, John,” she replied quickly, and there was the smallest bit of a shudder in her voice.  “I had forgotten.  We must put it out!”

Five minutes later only a few glowing embers remained where the fire had been.  He had spread out the pannier canvases, and now he seated himself with his back to a tree.  Joanne snuggled close to him.

“It is much nicer in the dark,” she whispered, and her arms reached up about him, and her lips pressed warm and soft against his hand.  “Are you just a little ashamed of me, John?”

“Ashamed?  Good heaven——­”