He caught quickly at her suggestion. "Yes, lost—in the woods and the swamps between the railroad and here. I was trying to find a place called Five Fingers."
She gave a little exclamation. "I'm from Five Fingers. It is not far. Uncle Pierre calls it a mile and a half."
Mona wondered at the strange silence which came over the man, and the suddenness with which his hunger seemed to be satisfied.
"You have been an angel to me," he said, when he had finished. "And—things love you. Even the wild creatures." He was looking at the baby beavers, humped into furry balls at the edge of the pond. "You called one of them Peterkin, and the old beaver Peter. I wonder—why?"
"And there is a bear cub I call Pete," she added. "It is because—"
"Yes——"
Her eyes were shining.
"Because I am going to marry a man whose name is Peter."
It did not seem strange to her that she should be confessing the secret of her happiness to a man she had never seen before.
There was something in his eyes which made her want him to know, a mysterious gentleness that seemed to plead for her confidence and her friendship. It gave her a pleasurable thrill to tell someone that she loved Peter and was going to be his wife. And this man was unlike any other who had ever come from the outside world into the wilderness isolation of Five Fingers.