"But if your mother should live down there—among the cities?" he asked.
She shivered a little, and nestled to him.
"I wouldn't like it, Sakewawin—not for long. I love this—the forest, the mountains, the skies." And then, suddenly she caught herself, and added quickly: "But anywhere—anywhere—if you are there, Sakewawin!"
"I too, love the forests, the mountains, and the skies," he whispered. "We will have them with us always, little comrade."
It was the fourteenth day when they descended the eastern slopes of the Divide, and he knew that they were not far from the Kwadocha and the Finley. Their fifteenth night they camped where he and the Butterfly's lover had built a noonday fire; and this night, though it was warm and glorious with a full moon, the Girl was possessed of a desire to have a fire of their own, and she helped to add fuel to it until the flames leaped high up into the shadows of the spruce, and drove them far back with its heat. David was content to sit and smoke his pipe while he watched her flit here and there after still more fuel, now a shadow in the darkness, and then again in the full fireglow. After a time she grew tired and nestled down beside him, spreading her hair over his breast and about his face in the way she knew he loved, and for an hour after that they talked in whispering voices that trembled with their happiness. When at last she went to bed, and fell asleep, he walked a little way out into the clear moonlight and sat down to smoke and listen to the murmur of the valley, his heart too full for sleep. Suddenly he was startled by a voice.
"David!"
He sprang up. From the shadow of a dwarf spruce half a dozen paces from him had stepped the figure of a man. He stood with bared head, the light of the moon streaming down upon him, and out of David's breast rose a strange cry, as if it were a spirit he saw, and not a man.
"David!"
"My God—Father Roland!"
They sprang across the little space between them, and their hands clasped. David could not speak. Before he found his voice, the Missioner was saying: