"Let him come."

"Pierre!"

"I mean it."

"Then give me one promise."

"A thousand of 'em."

"Let me hunt him with you."

He stared at her with a mute wonder. She had never been so beautiful.

"Jack, what a heart you have! If you were a man we could rule the mountains, you and I."

"Even as I am, what prevents us, Pierre?"

And looking at her he forgot the sorrow which had been his ever since he looked up to the face framed with red-gold hair and the dark tree behind and the cold stars steady above it. It would come to him again, but now it was gone, and he murmured, smiling: "I wonder?"