shivering in indecision, waiting a signal from David to do either one or the other.  And Tara was now moving slowly toward the dog!  His huge head was hung low, swinging slightly from side to side in a most terrifying way; his great jaws were agape, and the nearer he came to Baree the smaller the dog seemed to grow between the rocks.  At David’s sudden cry the girl had turned, and he was amazed to hear her laughter, clear and sweet as a bell.  It was funny, that picture of the dog and the bear, if one was in the mood to see the humour of it!

“Tara won’t hurt him,” she hurried to say, seeing David’s uneasiness.  “He loves dogs.  He wants to play with ... what is his name?”

“Baree.  And mine is David.”

“Baree—­David.  See!”

Like a bird she had left his side and in an instant, it seemed, was astride the big grizzly, digging her fingers into Tara’s thick coat—­smiling back at him, her radiant hair about her like a cloud, filled with marvellous red-and-gold fires in the sun.

“Come,” she said, holding out a hand to David.  “I want Tara to know you are our friend.  Because”—­the darkness came into her eyes again—­“I have been training him, and I want him to know he must not hurt you.”

David went to them, little fancying the acquaintance he was about to make, until Marge slipped off her bear and put her two arms unhesitatingly about his shoulders, and drew him down with her close in front of Tara’s big head and round, emotionless eyes.  For a thrilling moment or two she pressed her face close to his, looking all the time straight at Tara, and talking to him steadily.  David did not sense what she was saying, except that in a general way she was telling Tara that he must never hurt this man, no matter what happened.  He felt the warm crush of her hair on his neck and face.  It billowed on his breast for a moment.  The girl’s hand touched his cheek, warm and caressing.  He made no movement of his own, except to rise rigidly when she unclasped her arms from about his shoulders.

“There; he won’t hurt you now!” she exclaimed in triumph.

Her cheeks were flaming, but not with embarrassment.  Her eyes were as clear as the violets he had crushed under his feet in the mountain valleys.  He looked at her as she stood before him, so much like a child, and yet enough of a woman to make his own cheeks burn.  And then he saw a sudden changing expression come into her face.  There was something pathetic about it, something that made him see again what he had forgotten—­her exhaustion, the evidences of her struggle.  She was looking at his pack.

“We haven’t had anything to eat since we ran away,” she said simply.  “I’m hungry.”

He had heard children say “I’m hungry” in that same voice, with the same hopeful and entreating insistence in it; he had spoken those words himself a thousand times, to his mother, in just that same way, it seemed to him; and as she stood there, looking at his pack, he was filled with a very strong desire to crumple her close in his arms—­not as a woman, but as a child.  And this desire held him so still for a moment that she thought he was waiting for her to explain.