"And look at the river, yellow, yellow with gold! I can't work now, I want to see it all—and feel it too," and she ran to the water's edge where she sat down on a rock and gazed up and down the cañon.
When the camp was ready Courant joined her. The rock was wide enough for two and he sat beside her.
"So you like it, Missy?" he said, sending a side-long glance at her flushed face.
"Like it!" though there was plenty of room she edged nearer to him, "I'm wondering if it really is so beautiful or if I just think it so after the trail."
"You'll be content to stay here with me till we've made our pile?"
She looked at him and nodded, then slipped her fingers between his and whispered, though there was no one by to hear, "I'd be content to stay anywhere with you."
He was growing accustomed to this sort of reply. Deprived of it he would have noticed the omission, but it had of late become so common a feature in the conversation he felt no necessity to answer in kind. He glanced at the pine trunks about them and said:
"If the claim's good, we'll cut some of those and build a cabin. You'll see how comfortable I can make you, the way they do on the frontier."
She pressed his fingers for answer and he went on:
"When the winter comes we can move farther down. Up here we may get snow. But there'll be time between now and then to put up something warm and waterproof."