bowing down the heart and chilling the warm wheel of the blood.  For the rodents and the digging people—­even for the mighty grizzly himself—­the season means nothing but the cold and the darkness of their underground lairs.  For those that try to brave the winter, the portion is famine and cold; the vast, far-spreading silence broken only by the sobbing song of the wolf pack, starving and afraid on the distant ridges.  Man is the conqueror, the Mighty One who can strike the fire, but yet he too knows the creepy, haunting dread and deep-lying fear of the northern winter.  But that dread season was gone now, yielding for a few happy months to a gay invader from the South; and the whole forest world rejoiced.

Both Beatrice and Ben could sense the new wakening and revival in the still depths about them.  The forest was hushed, tremulous, yet vibrant and ecstatic with renewed life.  The old grizzly bear had left his winter lair; and good feeding was putting the fat again on his bones; the old cow moose had stolen away into the farther marshes for some mystery and miracle of her own.  Everywhere young calves of caribou were breathing the air for the first time, trying to stand on wobbly legs and pushing with greedy noses into overflowing udders.  The rich new grass yielded milk in plenty for all these wilderness nurslings.  Even the she-wolf forgot her wicked savagery to nurse and fondle her whelps in the lair; even the she-lynx, hunting with renewed fervor through the branches, knew of a marvelous secret in a hollow log that she would be torn to scraps of fur rather than reveal.

The she-ermine, her white hair falling out, was brooding a litter of cutthroats and murderers in a nest of grass and twigs, and each one of them was a source of pride and joy to her mother heart.  Even the wolverine had some wicked-eyed little cubs that, to her, were precious beyond rubies; but which would ultimately receive all the oaths in the language for stealing bait on the trap lines out from the settlements.

Beatrice, a woods creature herself, knew the stir and thrill of spring; but there were also more personal, more deeply hidden reasons why she was happy to-day.  She was certainly a very girlish-girl in most ways, with even more than the usual allowance of romance and sentiment, and the idea of an all-day picnic with this stalwart forester went straight home to her imagination.  She had been tremendously impressed with him from the first, and the day’s ride out from Snowy Gulch had brought him very close to her indeed.  And what might not the day bring forth!  What mystery and wonder might come to pass!

Her dark eyes were lustrous, and the haunting sadness they often held was quite gone.  Her face was faintly flushed, her red lips wistful, every motion eager and happy as a child’s.  But Ben looked at her unmoved.

Coldly his eye leaped over her supple, slender form.  He saw with relief that she was stoutly clad in middy and skirt of wool, wool stockings, and solid little boots.  The heavy coat she had brought was not particularly noteworthy in these woods, but it would have drawn instant admiration from knowing people of a great city.  It was not cut with particular style, neither was it beautifully lined, but the fabric itself was plucked otter,—­the dark, well-wearing fur of many lights and of matchless luster and beauty.