Two reasons might account for this:  First, there is no sane human being who is not better off for companionship.  An exile would find something of happiness in one who shared his misery.  And, secondly, Joe was a most acceptable comrade, even for a slayer of Indians.  Wedded as Wetzel was to the forest trails, to his lonely life, to the Nemesis-pursuit he had followed for eighteen long years, he was still a white man, kind and gentle in his quiet hours, and because of this, though he knew it not, still capable of affection.  He had never known youth; his manhood had been one pitiless warfare against his sworn foes; but once in all those years had his sore, cold heart warmed; and that was toward a woman who was not for him.  His life had held only one purpose—­a bloody one.  Yet the man had a heart, and he could not prevent it from responding to another.  In his simple ignorance he rebelled against this affection for anything other than his forest homes.  Man is weak against hate; what can he avail against love?  The dark caverns of Wetzel’s great heart opened, admitting to their gloomy depths this stranger.  So now a new love was born in that cheerless heart, where for so long a lonely inmate, the ghost of old love, had dwelt in chill seclusion.

The feeling of comradeship which Wetzel had for Joe was something altogether new in the hunter’s life.  True he had hunted with Jonathan Zane, and accompanied expeditions where he was forced to sleep with another scout; but a companion, not to say friend, he had never known.  Joe was a boy, wilder than an eagle, yet he was a man.  He was happy and enthusiastic, still his good spirits never jarred on the hunter; they were restrained.  He never asked questions, as would seem the case in any eager lad; he waited until he was spoken to.  He was apt; he never forgot anything; he had the eye of a born woodsman, and lastly, perhaps what went far with Wetzel, he was as strong and supple as a young lynx, and absolutely fearless.

On this evening Wetzel and Joe followed their usual custom; they smoked a while before lying down to sleep.  Tonight the hunter was even more silent than usual, and the lad, tired out with his day’s tramp, lay down on a bed of fragrant boughs.

Wetzel sat there in the gathering gloom while he pulled slowly on his pipe.  The evening was very quiet; the birds had ceased their twittering; the wind had died away; it was too early for the bay of a wolf, the wail of a panther, or hoot of an owl; there was simply perfect silence.

The lad’s deep, even breathing caught Wetzel’s ear, and he found himself meditating, as he had often of late, on this new something that had crept into his life.  For Joe loved him; he could not fail to see that.  The lad had preferred to roam with the lonely Indian-hunter through the forests, to encounter the perils and hardships of a wild life, rather than accept the smile of fortune and of love.  Wetzel knew that Colonel Zane had taken a liking to the boy,