“Guess we’re ready,” Johnny said a few moments later.
Wrapping a great piece of dark red meat in a square of skin, he lifted it to her shoulders.
“Carry it?” he said.
“Easy.”
“All right. Let’s go.”
He felt like a brute, loading a girl so; yet in future their lives might depend upon that meat. Night was approaching. To return in the dark was out of the question. And who could say what the little foxes, the wolves and wolverines would do to that dead moose during the night?
So they trudged on with weary limbs, but light hearts. As the darkness deepened there came over Johnny a feeling that was hard to analyze. It was a pleasing sensation, and had to do with the girl. He was her guardian, her protector. This day, with his bow and arrow he had saved her life. There could be no question about that. The tree she had climbed was partially dead. In time, under the mad bull’s wild onslaught, it must have fallen.
“And then,” he shuddered at the thought.
“Do you know,” she said quite suddenly, “I didn’t do a thing to that moose? Not a thing.”
“Except invade his territory in a bright red sweater,” Johnny chuckled. “That was enough.”