"You're right, as always, Ruth," he agreed. "We can't depend on the matches alone. We'll have to get something that will serve as a torch. While I was digging, I remember I came across many branches of trees that had been carried down by the slide in its rush. We'll see if we can't make some torches out of them."
He set lustily to work and soon had as many as ten good-sized sticks that promised to supply his need. He was afraid that not being seasoned wood they would prove difficult to light. But there proved to be a resinous quality in the wood that atoned for its greenness, and before long he had a torch that burned steadily though rather murkily.
"Eureka!" he cried waving it aloft.
"Good for you, Allen," applauded Ruth. "Now give me the rest of those sticks to carry and you go ahead with the lighted torch."
"I'll carry them myself," he protested.
"No you won't," she said decidedly, at the same time gathering them up in her arms. "You'll have the torch in one hand and you need to have the other free for emergencies."
He recognized the common sense of this, but found it hard to let her do it.
"It's too much like the Indians," he said. "You know that with them the buck carries his dignity, while his squaw carries everything else."
"But I'm not your squaw," slipped saucily from Ruth's lips before she could realize the possible significance of her remark.
"Not yet," replied Allen daringly, wanting to bite his tongue out a moment later for having taken advantage of her slip.