"You may carry me—some time—but not down a mountain," she said, and laid her head wearily on the pillow of her arm, so that her face was concealed from him. "And now—please get supper, Sakewawin."
He spread his blanket over her before he began searching for a camp site. He noticed that Tara was already hunting for roots. Baree followed close at his master's heels. Quite near, David found a streamlet that trickled down from the snow line, and to a grassy plot on the edge of this he dragged a quantity of dry wood and built a fire. Then he made a thick couch of balsam boughs and went to his little companion. In the half hour he had been at work she had fallen asleep. Utter exhaustion was in the limpness of her slender body as he raised her gently in his arms. The handkerchief had slipped back over her shoulder and she was wonderfully sweet, and helpless, as she lay with her head on his breast. She was still asleep when he placed her on the balsams, and it was dark when he awakened her for supper. The fire was burning brightly. Tara had stretched himself out in a huge, dark bulk in the outer glow of it. Baree was close to the fire. The girl sat up, rubbed her eyes, and stared at David.
"Sakewawin," she whispered then, looking about her in a moment's bewilderment.
"Supper," he said, smiling. "I did it all while you were napping, little lady. Are you hungry?"
He had spread their meal so that she did not have to move from her balsams, and he had brought a short piece of timber to place as a rest at her back, cushioned by his shoulder pack and the blanket. After all his trouble she did not eat much. The mistiness was still in her eyes, so after he had finished he took away the timber and made of the balsams a deep pillow for her, that she might lie restfully, with her head well up, while he smoked. He did not want her to go to sleep. He wanted to talk. And he began by asking how she had so carelessly run away with only a pair of moccasins on her feet and no clothes but the thin garments she was wearing.
"They were in Tara's pack, Sakewawin," she explained, her eyes glowing like sleepy pools in the fireglow. "They were lost."
He began then to tell her about Father Roland. She listened, growing sleepier, her lashes drooping slowly until they formed dark curves on her cheeks. He was close enough to marvel at their length, and as he watched them, quivering in her efforts to keep awake and listen to him, they seemed to him like the dark petals of two beautiful flowers closing slumbrously for the night. It was a wonderful thing to see them open suddenly and find the full glory of the sleep-filled eyes on him for an instant, and then to watch them slowly close again as she fought valiantly to conquer her irresistible drowsiness, the merest dimpling of a smile on her lips. The last time she opened them he had her picture in his hands, and was looking at it, quite close to her, with the fire lighting it up. For a moment he thought the sight if it had awakened her completely.
"Throw it into the fire," she said. "Brokaw made me let him take it, and I hate it. I hate Brokaw. I hate the picture. Burn it."
"But I must keep it," he protested. "Burn it! Why it's...."
"You won't want it—after to-night."