“Come,” he said, “come and get some breakfast.  I find you have eaten nothing since you have been here—­twenty-four hours.”

“I didn’t know it,” she said, with a faint smile.  Then seeing his burden, and possessed by a new and strange desire for some menial employment, she said hurriedly, “Let me carry something—­do, please,” and even tried to disencumber him.

Half annoyed, Low at last yielded, and handing his rifle said, “There, then, take that; but be careful—­it’s loaded!”

A cruel blush burnt the woman’s face to the roots of her hair as she took the weapon hesitatingly in her hand.

“No!” she stammered, hurriedly lifting her shame-suffused eyes to his; “no! no!”

He turned away with an impatience which showed her how completely gratuitous had been her agitation and its significance, and said, “Well, then give it back if you are afraid of it.”  But she as suddenly declined to return it; and shouldering it deftly, took her place by his side.  Silently they moved from the hollow tree together.

During their walk she did not attempt to invade his taciturnity.  Nevertheless she was as keenly alive and watchful of his every movement and gesture as if she had hung enchanted on his lips.  The unerring way with which he pursued a viewless, undeviating path through those trackless woods, his quick reconnaissance of certain trees or openings, his mute inspection of some almost imperceptible footprint of bird or beast, his critical examination of certain plants which he plucked and deposited in his deerskin haversack, were not lost on the quick-witted woman.  As they gradually changed the clear, unencumbered aisles of the central woods for a more tangled undergrowth, Teresa felt that subtle admiration which culminates in imitation, and simulating perfectly the step, tread, and easy swing of her companion, followed so accurately his lead that she won a gratified exclamation from him when their goal was reached—­a broken, blackened shaft, splintered by long-forgotten lightning, in the centre of a tangled carpet of wood-clover.

“I don’t wonder you distanced the deputy,” he said cheerfully, throwing down his burden, “if you can take the hunting-path like that.  In a few days, if you stay here, I can venture to trust you alone for a little pasear when you are tired of the tree.”

Teresa looked pleased, but busied herself with arrangements for the breakfast, while he gathered the fuel for the roaring fire which soon blazed beside the shattered tree.

Teresa’s breakfast was a success.  It was a revelation to the young nomad, whose ascetic habits and simple tastes were usually content with the most primitive forms of frontier cookery.  It was at least a surprise to him to know that without extra trouble kneaded flour, water, and saleratus need not be essentially heavy; that coffee need not be boiled with sugar to the consistency of syrup; that even that