“Well, that makes it all right with me,” he went on, honestly.  “I—­I want you to feel that...you see—­we’ve been thrown together—­and—­and I want to help you—­not hurt you.  I thought life had been cruel to me, but when I think of yours I feel mean and little for my complaining.  Anyway, I was a lonely outcast.  And now!...I don’t see very clearly what it all means.  Only we are here—­together.  We’ve got to stay here, for long, surely till you are well.  But you’ll never go back to Oldring.  And I’m sure helping you will help me, for I was sick in mind.  There’s something now for me to do.  And if I can win back your strength—­then get you away, out of this wild country—­help you somehow to a happier life—­just think how good that’ll be for me!”

CHAPTER X. LOVE

During all these waiting days Venters, with the exception of the afternoon when he had built the gate in the gorge, had scarcely gone out of sight of camp and never out of hearing.  His desire to explore Surprise Valley was keen, and on the morning after his long talk with the girl he took his rifle and, calling Ring, made a move to start.  The girl lay back in a rude chair of boughs he had put together for her.  She had been watching him, and when he picked up the gun and called the dog Venters thought she gave a nervous start.

“I’m only going to look over the valley,” he said.

“Will you be gone long?”

“No,” he replied, and started off.  The incident set him thinking of his former impression that, after her recovery from fever, she did not seem at ease unless he was close at hand.  It was fear of being alone, due, he concluded, most likely to her weakened condition.  He must not leave her much alone.

As he strode down the sloping terrace, rabbits scampered before him, and the beautiful valley quail, as purple in color as the sage on the uplands, ran fleetly along the ground into the forest.  It was pleasant under the trees, in the gold-flecked shade, with the whistle of quail and twittering of birds everywhere.  Soon he had passed the limit of his former excursions and entered new territory.  Here the woods began to show open glades and brooks running down from the slope, and presently he emerged from shade into the sunshine of a meadow.  The shaking of the high grass told him of the running of animals, what species he could not tell, but from Ring’s manifest desire to have a chase they were evidently some kind wilder than rabbits.  Venters approached the willow and cottonwood belt that he had observed from the height of slope.  He penetrated it to find a considerable stream of water and great half-submerged mounds of brush and sticks, and all about him were old and new gnawed circles at the base of the cottonwoods.

“Beaver!” he exclaimed.  “By all that’s lucky!  The meadow’s full of beaver!  How did they ever get here?”