"Ye've hit it, Henry," answered the trapper, promptly. "Yis, ye've hit it in the centre. I noted her face, the look in her eyes and the arnestness of her voice; and there is no doubt about the matter of the lovin'. She is one of the quiet kind, boy; and she has got the faculty of listenin' a long time, which isn't nateral to a woman. But when she speaks, ye can see what she is. She has a quiet face but a detarmined sperit. I've seed several of the same sort,—seed them afore the battle and arter the battle; and I know what's in the heart of the girl. Yis, I know what's in the heart of the girl," and the old man looked at his companion across the camp fire.
The young man returned his gaze, and then said quietly:
"What is in the heart of the girl, John Norton?"
"Ef the man dies, the girl dies, too," answered the trapper, and stooping, he pushed a brand into the centre of the fire.
"It is awful to think so," replied the young man, "it is awful to think that one so lovely should die so miserable."
"She belongs to the kind that does seen things," answered the trapper. "But whether ye can call her dyin' miserable, I sartinly doubt; for there be some that can't die miserable owin' to their feelin's. And I've noted that them who die feelin' a sartin way die happy whenever they die; for death means one thing to one and another thing to another; and the heart that has lost all, is happy to go in sarch of it, even ef it be along the trail that the sun never shines on."
And so the two men sat and talked, feeding the camp fire with sticks occasionally as they talked. They wondered who the man was and whence he came, wondered if he would change his views and if the girl could win him over to a rational way of looking at the deed that had been done and the true way to atone for it; wondered if they could not assist her in her loving task when the morning came; talked and wondered and planned, and at last, wrapping their blankets around them, they laid down to sleep. The last words spoken were by the Trapper, and were these:
"We will go over in the mornin', Herbert, and help the girl."
And then they slept.