The girl watched with some pleasure his rather awkward efforts to go about his work in silence,—­evidently still believing her asleep.  She laughed secretly at his distress as he tripped clumsily over a piece of firewood; then watched him with real interest as he mixed batter for griddle cakes and fried the white breast of the grouse in bear fat.  Filling one of the two tin plates he stole into the cavern.

Falling into his mood the girl pretended to be asleep.  She couldn’t have understood why her pulse quickened as he knelt beside her, looking so earnestly and soberly into her face.  Then she felt the touch of his fingers on her shoulder.

“Wake up, Beatrice,” he commanded, with pretended gruffness.  “It’s after ten, and you’ve got to cook my breakfast.”

She stirred, pretending difficulty in opening her eyes.

“Get right up,” he commanded again.  “D’ye think I’m going to wait all morning?”

She opened her eyes to find him regarding her with boyish glee.  Then—­as a surprise—­he proffered the filled plate, meanwhile raising his arm in feigned fear of a blow.

She laughed; then began upon her breakfast with genuine relish.  Then he brought her hot water and the meager toilet articles; and left the cave to prepare his own breakfast.

“I’m going on a little hunt,” he said, when this rite was over.  “We can’t depend on grouse and bear forever.  I hate to ask you to go—­”

His tone was hopeful; and she could not doubt but that the lonely spirit of these solitudes had hold of him.  They were two human beings in a vast and uninhabited wilderness, and although they were foes, they felt the primitive need of each other’s companionship.  “I don’t mind going,” she told him.  “I’d rather, than stay in the cave.”

“It’s a fine morning.  And what’s your favorite meat—­moose or caribou?”

“Caribou—­although I like both.”

He might have expected this answer.  There are few meats in this imperfect earth to compare in flavor with that of the great, woodland caribou, monarch of the high park-lands.

“That means we do some climbing, instead of watching in the beaver meadows.  I’m ready—­any time.”

They took the game trail up the ridge, venturing at once into the heavy spruce; but curiously enough, the mysterious hush, the dusky shadows did not appall Beatrice greatly to-day.  The miles sped swiftly under her feet.  Always there were creatures to notice or laugh at,—­a squirrel performing on a branch, a squawking Canada Jay surprised and utterly baffled by their tall forms, a porcupine hunched into a spiny ball and pretending a ferociousness that deceived not even such hairbrained folk as the chipmunks in the tree roots, or those queens of stupidity, the fool hens on the branch.  In the way of more serious things sometimes they paused to gaze down on some particularly beautiful glen—­watered, perhaps, by a gleaming stream—­or a long, dark valley steeped deeply in the ancient mysticism of the trackless wilds.