Nevertheless, in an instant Caleb had whipped off his thick mackintosh and wrapped her in its huge folds. She vainly protested that he must not rob himself; but the cozy comfort of the big garment as well as his flat refusal to let her remove it soon silenced her objections. Conover had taken charge of the situation. It was the work of a minute to scratch together an armful of twigs, chips and small boughs,—relics of the hewn tree,—to thrust under the heap a crumpled letter from his pocket, and to set a match to the impromptu fire.
Then, as the twigs crackled and blazed, he scoured the hilltop for larger wood. Half rotted logs that would smoulder like peat, huge tree branches that must be dragged instead of carried to the fire; a bulky length of lumber overlooked when the tree had been cut up and carted away. These and lesser fuel served in an amazingly short time to turn the sputtering flamelets into a roaring camp fire.
Piece after piece of his gathered wood Caleb fed to the blaze; Desirée leaning back, deliciously warm and happy, to encourage the labor. A second journey into the dark and Conover was back with more fuel, which he piled in reserve beyond the reach of the flame tongues.
“You work like a veteran woodsman,” she praised.
“Why wouldn’t I?” he puffed, dragging in a new bunch of long boughs for the reserve pile. “I had to hustle fires an’ grub for the section gang, ten months or more, when I was a youngster. That’s why it seems funny to me that folks should pay big money for a chance of chasin’ out to the wilderness an’ doin’ the chores I used to get $1.85 a day for. Still, once in a lifetime, it comes in handy to know how.”
The heat was fierce. Caleb drew back from the fire, mopping his red face. Then he took off his tweed jacket. Crossing to Desirée, he lifted his mackintosh from her shoulders and made her put on the jacket. The latter’s hem fell to her knees. Conover rolled back its sleeves until her engulfed hands were once more visible. Then he spread the mackintosh on the ground near the fire; incidentally dislodging Rex from a carefully chosen bed.
“There!” proclaimed the Fighter. “That’s done. Now you’ve a camp bed. Lay down on that mackintosh an’ I’ll wrap you up in it. You won’t catch cold, even if the fire dies out. Which same it won’t; for I’m goin’ to set up an’ keep it burnin’.”
“In other words,” she said with the stern air of rebuke that he loved, “I am going to curl up in all the wraps there are and go fast to sleep, while you sit up all night long and keep the fire going? I think I see myself doing it!”
“If we had a lookin’ glass along,” he answered, unruffled, “you could. As it is, you’ll just have to take my word for it. I’ll set back on that stump where you are now, an’ I’ll have that big trunk to rest my head on. An’ I’ll sleep a blamed sight better’n I ever do in a Pullman. When I feel cold I’ll know the fire’s dyin’ down an’ I’ll get up an’ tend it, an’ then go to sleep again. It’s a—”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” contradicted Desirée. “I’ll—”