him carry some of the lighter supplies up to the cave, she had stood by him like the game little pal she was.  He could dream, but he could not show himself ungrateful to Marion by leaving the place.  Truth to tell, when he could be with her he did not want to leave.  But the times when he could be with her were so dishearteningly few that they could not hold his courage steady.  She upbraided him for going so far down the mountain to meet her—­what would she have said if she knew that once, when the moon was full, he had gone down to the very walls of the cabin where she slept, and had stood there like a lonesome ghost, just for the comfort her nearness gave him?  Jack did not tell her that!

Jack did not tell her anything at all of his misery.  He felt that it would not be “square” to worry Marion, who was doing so much for him and doing it with such whole-souled gladness, to serve a fellow being in distress.  Jack did not flatter himself that she would not have done exactly as much for any other likable fellow.  It was an adventure that helped to fill her empty days.  He understood that perfectly, and as far as was humanly possible he let her think the adventure a pleasant one for him.  He could not always control his tongue and his tones, but he made it a point to leave her as soon as he saw her beginning to doubt his contentment and well-being.

He would not even let Marion see that thoughts of his mother gnawed at him like a physical pain.  He tried to hold to his old, childish resentment against her because she never spoke of his dad and did not show any affection for his dad’s boy.  Once she had sighed and said, “I never will forgive you, Jack, for not being a girl!” and Jack had never forgotten that, though he did forget the little laugh and the playful push she had given him afterwards.  Such remarks had been always in the back of his mind, hardening him against his mother.  Now they turned against Jack accusingly.  Why couldn’t he have been a girl?  She would have gotten some comfort out of him then, instead of being always afraid that he would do something awful.  She would have had him with her more, and they would have become really acquainted instead of being half strangers.

He would stare at the rock walls of the cave and remember little things he had forgotten in his roistering quest of fun.  He remembered a certain wistfulness in her eyes when she was caught unawares with her gaze upon him.  He remembered that never had she seemed to grudge him money—­and as for clothes, he bought what he liked and never thought of the cost, and she paid the bills and never seemed to think them too large, though Jack was ashamed now at the recollection of some of them.