“Oh, that’s nonsense.” He turned away abruptly and made his way up the bank. “I’m right here in the trees and I can hear you. So if I can help you I want you to call.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, “I will.”

[11]

[11]

II BABES IN THE WOODS

Gallatin’s responsibilities to his Creator had been multiplied by two.

Less than an hour ago he had dropped his rod and creel more than half convinced that it didn’t matter to him or to anybody else whether he got back to Joe Keegón or not. Now, he suddenly found himself hustling busily in the underbrush, newly alive to the exigencies of the occasion, surprised even at the fact that he could take so extraordinary an interest in the mere building of a fire. Back and forth from the glade to the deep woods he hurried, bringing dry leaves, twigs, and timber. These he piled against a fallen tree in the lee of the spot he had chosen for his shelter and in a moment a fire was going. Many things bothered him. He had no axe and the blade of his hasp-knife was hardly suited to the task he found before him. If his hands were not so tender as they had been a month ago, and if into his faculties a glimmering of woodcraft had found its way, the fact remained that this blade, his Colt, fishing-rod and his wits (such as they were), were all that he possessed in the uneven match against the forces of Nature. Something of the calm ruthlessness of the mighty wilderness came to him at this moment. The immutable trees rose before him as symbols of a merciless creed which all the forces around him uttered with the terrible eloquence of silence. He was an intruder from an alien land, of no importance in the changeless scheme of things—less[12] important than the squirrel which peeped at him slyly from the branch above his head or the chickadee which piped flutelike in the thicket. The playfellow of his strange summer had become his enemy, only jocular and ironical as yet, but still an enemy, with which he must do battle with what weapons he could find.

[12]

It was the first time in his life that he had been placed in a position of complete dependence upon his own efforts—the first time another had been dependent on him. He and Joe had traveled 

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