“Yes,” he said simply. His eyes as he watched her filled with pride in their comradeship—his and hers.

“And, oh, that makes me think!” she cried excitedly. “I’ve forgotten to tell you about the poem Miss Wallace sent me yesterday. You see, I’m collecting lovely ones, and she’s such a help in sending them to me. I learned this one to say to you. Of course she didn’t know, but it’s just like we were the Christmas before I went away to school when you were home for the holidays. Don’t you remember how we went for Christmas greens up Bear Canyon in that big snow-storm and didn’t get home until long after dark, and how Jim and William were just starting to hunt for us? Listen! I know you’ll like it. It’s called ‘Comrades.’

“‘You need not say one word to me as up the hill we go (Night-time, white-time, all in the whispering snow), 296 You need not say one word to me, although the whispering trees Seem strange and old as pagan priests in swaying mysteries.
“‘You need not think one thought of me as up the trail we go (Hill-trail, still-trail, all in the hiding snow), You need not think one thought of me, although a hare runs by, And off behind the tumbled cairn we hear a red fox cry.
“‘Oh, good and rare it is to feel as through the night we go (Wild-wise, child-wise, all in the secret snow) That we are free of heart and foot as hare and fox are free, And yet that I am glad of you, and you are glad of me!’”

“Don’t you like it, Don?” she finished eagerly. “I do. I like it because I think it shows the finest kind of friendship—the kind that makes you free to do just what seems right and best to you, and yet makes you glad of your friends. Miss Wallace calls it the friendship which doesn’t demand, and it’s her ideal, too. I’m sure she was thinking of that when she sent me the poem. And then I like it most 297 of all because it makes me think of that Christmas, and the good time we had. Don’t you like it?” she repeated.

In her eagerness she was all unconscious that she had given him no time to reply.

“Yes,” he said. “I should say I do like it. I guess I’ll copy it, if you don’t mind. And, Virginia,” he added, hesitating, “you don’t know what our comradeship means to me. You see, when a fellow goes away to college the way I’m going, it helps him to be—to be on the square in everything, if he has a comrade like—like you’ve always been.”

But there was no hesitation—only gladness in Virginia’s frank gray eyes as she looked at him.

“Oh, I’m so glad!” she cried, her face flooded with happiness. “That’s the very kind of a comrade I want to be, Don! I like to feel just as it says in the poem:

“‘That we are free of heart and foot as hare and fox are free, And yet that I am glad of you, and you are glad of me!’”

THE END