Three times they retreated into the darkness; three times returned heavily laden. Then, each working at the end of a log, they replenished the fire. Logs were piled high. Small branches were thrown on. As the fire leaped up the girl spoke.
“Where were you going?” she asked.
“Why, nowhere in particular. Just bumming, you might say.”
She looked at him in a peculiar way.
“Well,” he said half apologetically, “it wasn’t exactly that. Been in the North before, but not with bow and arrow; not Canada either. Alaska. The North called me back.”
“I know.” Her voice was low and deep. “It always does.”
“As for the bow,” he spoke again, “I’m a mere novice. But there’s a charm to such hunting that does not come with firearms. And these primeval forests always have seemed to call to me. The wilderness has voices, a thousand voices.”
The girl nodded.
“I took the dare that nature threw down to me,” he said abruptly, “and here I am.”
“But your arrows? You had only one.”