“I won’t go back!” she said.  “I’ll—­fight!”

Her voice was clear, direct, defiant.  Her hands appeared from behind her, and her little fists were clenched.  With a swift movement she tossed her hair back from about her face.  Her eyes were blue, but dark as thunder clouds in their gathering fierceness.  She was like a child, and yet a woman.  A ferocious little person.  Ready to fight.  Ready to spring at him if he approached.  Her eyes never left his face.

“I won’t go back!” she repeated.  “I won’t!”

He was noticing other things about her.  Her moccasins were in tatters.  Her short skirt was torn.  Her shining hair was in tangles.  As she swept it back from her face he saw under her eyes the darkness of exhaustion; in her cheeks a wanness, which he did not know just then was caused by hunger, and by her struggle to get away from something.  On the back of one of her clenched hands was a deep, red scratch.  The look in his face must have given the girl some inkling of the truth.  She leaned a little forward, quickly and eagerly, and demanded: 

“Didn’t you come from the Nest?  Didn’t they send you—­after me?”

She pointed down the narrow valley, her lips parted as she waited for his answer, her hair rioting over her breast again as she bent toward him.

“I’ve come fifteen hundred miles—­from that direction,” said David, swinging an arm toward the backward mountains.  “I’ve never been in this country before.  I don’t know where the Nest is, or what it is.  And I’m not going to take you back to it unless you want to go.  If some one is coming after you, and you’re bound to fight.  I’ll help you.  Will that bear bite?”

He swung off his pack and put down his gun.  For a moment the girl stared at him with widening eyes.  The fear went out of them slowly.  Her hand unclenched, and suddenly she turned to the big grizzly and clasped her bared arms about the shaggy monster’s neck.

“Tara, Tara, it isn’t one of them!” she cried.  “It isn’t one of them—­and we thought it was!”

She whirled on David with a suddenness that took his breath away.  It was like the swift turning of a bird.  He had never seen a movement so quick.

“Who are you?” she flung at him, as if she had not already heard his name.  “Why are you here?  What business have you going up there—­to the Nest?”

“I don’t like that bear,” said David dubiously, as the grizzly made a slow movement toward him.

“Tara won’t hurt you,” she said.  “Not unless you put your hands on me, and I scream.  I’ve had him ever since he was a baby and he has never hurt any one yet.  But—­he will!” Her eyes glowed darkly again, and her voice had a strange, hard little note in it.  “I’ve been ... training him,” she added.  “Tell me—­why are you going to the Nest?”

It was a point-blank, determined question, with still a hint of suspicion in it; and her eyes, as she asked it, were the clearest, steadiest, bluest eyes he had ever looked into.