He was finding it hard to live up to what he had expected of himself.  Many times he had thought of what he would say when he found this girl, if he ever did find her; but he had anticipated something a little more conventional, and had believed that it would be quite the easiest matter in the world to tell who he was, and why he had come, and to tell it all convincingly and understandably.  He had not, in short, expected the sort of little person who stood there against her bear—­a very difficult little person to approach easily and with assurance—­half woman and half child, and beautifully wild.  She was not disappointing.  She was greatly appealing.  When he surveyed her in a particularizing way, as he did swiftly, there was an exquisiteness about her that gave him pleasureable thrills.  But it was all wild.  Even her hair, an amazing glory of tangled curls, was wild in its disorder; she seemed palpitating with that wildness, like a fawn that had been run into a corner—­no, not a fawn, but some beautiful creature that could and would fight desperately if need be.  That was his impression.  He was undergoing a smashing of his conceptions of this girl as he had visioned her from the picture, and a readjustment of her as she existed for him now.  And he was not disappointed.  He had never seen anything quite like this Marge O’Doone and her bear. O’Doone! His mind had harked back quickly, at her mention of that name, to the woman in the coach of the Transcontinental, the woman who was seeking a man by the name of Michael O’Doone.  Of course the woman was her mother.  Her name, too, must have been O’Doone.

Very slowly the girl detached herself from her bear, and came until she stood within three steps of David.

“Tara won’t hurt you,” she assured him again, “unless I scream.  He would tear you to pieces, then.”

If she had betrayed a sudden fear at his first appearance, it was gone now.  Her eyes were like dark rock-violets and again he thought them the bluest and most fearless eyes he had ever seen.  She was less a child now, standing so close to him; her slimness made her appear taller than she was.  David knew that she was going to question him, and before she could speak he asked: 

“Why are you afraid of some one coming after you from the Nest, as you call it?”

“Because,” she replied with quiet fearlessness, “I am running away from it.”

“Running away!” he gasped.  “How long....”

“Two days.”

He understood now—­her ragged moccasins, her frayed skirt, her tangled hair, the look of exhaustion about her.  It came upon him all at once that she was standing unsteadily, swaying slightly like the slender stem of a flower stirred by a breath of air, and that he had not noticed these things because of the steadiness and clearness of her wonderful eyes.  He was at her side in an instant.  He forgot the bear.  His hand seized hers—­the one with the deep, red scratch on it—­and drew