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Barbara elevated her small nose in righteous indignation. After a long time she just peeped in his direction. He was laughing to himself. She hastily elevated her nose again. After all it was very lonely in the woods.

“Supper is ready,” he announced after a time.

“I do not think I care for any,” she replied, with dignity. She was very tired and hungry and cross, and her eyes were hot.

“Oh, yes you do,” he insisted, carelessly. “Come now, before it gets cold.”

“I tell you I do not care for any,” she returned, haughtily.

For answer he picked her up bodily, carried her ten feet, and deposited her on another log. Beside her lay a clean bit of bark containing a broiled deer-steak, toasted bread, and a cup of tea. She struggled angrily.

“Don’t be a fool,” the man commanded, sternly, “you need food. You will eat supper, now!”

Barbara looked up at him with wide eyes. Then she began to eat the venison. By and by she remarked, “You are rather nice,” and after she had drained the last drop of tea she even smiled, a trifle humbly. “Thank you,” said she.

It was now dark, and the night had stolen down through the sentry trees to the very outposts of the fire. The man arranged the rubber blanket before it. Barbara sat upon the blanket and leaned her back against the log. He perched above her, producing a pipe.

“May I?” he asked.

Then, when he had puffed a few moments in quiet content, he inquired: “How did you come to get lost?”

She told him.

“That was very foolish,” he scolded, severely. “Don’t you know any better than to go into the woods without your bearings? It was idiotic!”

“Thank you,” replied Barbara, meekly.

“Well, it was!” he insisted, the bronze on his cheek deepening a little.

She watched him for some time, while he watched the flames. She liked to see the light defining boldly the clean-shaven outline of his jaw; she liked to guess at the fire of his gray eyes beneath the shadow of his brow. Not once did he look toward her. Meekly she told herself that this was just. He was dreaming of larger things, seeing in the coals pictures of that romantic, strenuous, mysterious life of which he was a part. He had no room in the fulness of his existence for such as she–she, silly little Barbara, whose only charm was a maddening fashion of pointing outward her adorable chin. She asked him about it, this life of the winds of heaven.

“Are you always in the woods?” she inquired.

“Not always,” said he.

“But you live in them a great deal?”

“Yes.”

“You must have a great many exciting adventures.”

“Not many.”

“Where did you come from just now?”

“South.”

“Where are you going?”

“Northwest.”

“What are you going to do there?”

There ensued a slight pause before the stranger’s reply. “Walk through the woods,” said he.

“In other words, it’s none of my business,” retorted Barbara, a little tartly.

“Ah, but you see it’s not entirely mine,” he explained.

This offered a new field.

“Then you are on a mission?”

“Yes.”

“Is it important?”

“Yes.”

“How long is it going to take you?”

“Many years.”

“What is your name?”

“Garrett Stanton.”

“You are a gentleman, aren’t you?”

A flicker of amusement twinkled subtly in the corner of his eye. “I suppose you mean gently bred, college-educated. Do you think it’s of vast importance?”

Barbara examined him reflectively, her chin in her hand, her elbow on her knee. She looked at his wavy hair, his kindly, humorous gray eyes, the straight line of his fine-cut nose, his firm lips with the quaint upward twist of the corners, the fine contour of his jaw.

“No-o-o,” she agreed, “I don’t suppose it does. Only I know you are a gentleman,” she added, with delightful inconsistence. Stanton bowed gravely to the fire in ironic acknowledgment.

“Why don’t you ever look at me?” burst out Barbara, vexed. “Why do you stare at that horrid fire?”

He turned and looked her full in the face. In a moment her eyes dropped before his frank scrutiny. She felt the glow rising across her forehead. When she raised her head again he was staring calmly at the fire as before, one hand clasped under his arm, the other holding the bowl of his brier pipe.