He picked the sleeping boy up without a word, and laid him on the couch of bear-skins without waking him.
"There isn't much I do mind," he said, as he came back to the fire-place; "that is, if you are only comfortable."
"I am—very much so," she answered, "and would be entirely so if you only seemed a little more at home. As it is, I have felt all evening as if we are upsetting your peace of mind in some way—not as if we are unwelcome, mind you, but just as if you are worried about us."
"That so?" he queried, not looking at her; "that's curious. I didn't know I was looking so, and I'm sure you and the boy are mighty welcome to my cabin or anything in the world I can do for you."
There was no mistaking the heartiness of the man's words, and she smiled her gratitude from the niche in the corner, where, with her back toward the blaze, only one side of her face was outlined by the light.
"Very well," she said amicably; "you can do something for me just now—open the door for a little while; the room seems close with being shut up so tight from the rain—and then make yourself comfortable there on that buffalo-robe before the fire. I remember your lounging habits in the camp, and a chair doesn't seem to quite suit you. Yes, that looks much better, as if you were at home again."
Stretched on the robe, with her saddle on which to prop up his shoulders, he lay, looking in the red coals, as if forgetful of her speech or herself. But at last he repeated her words:
"At home again! Do you know there's a big lot of meaning in those words, Miss, especially to a man who hasn't known what home meant for years? and to-night, with white people in my cabin and a white woman to make things look natural, I tell you it makes me remember what home used to be, in a way I have not experienced for many a day."
"Then I'm glad I strayed off into the storm and your cabin," said the girl promptly; "because a man shouldn't forget his home and home-folks, especially if the memories would be good ones. People need all the good memories they can keep with them in this world; they're a sort of steering apparatus in a life-boat, and help a man make a straight journey toward his future."
"That's so," he said, and put his hand up over his eyes as if to shield them from the heat of the fire. He was lying full in the light, while she was in the shadow. He could scarcely see her features, with her head drawn back against the wall like that. And the very fact of knowing herself almost unseen—a voice, only, speaking to him—gave her courage to say things as she could not have said them at another time.