The Barrier

looked back upon them, but blended into one dreamlike procession, as if he wandered through some calenture where every image was delightfully distorted and each act delirio

tropics or the dementia of the forest folk in spring. A gentle frenzy possessed them, rendering them insensible to fatigue and causing them to hurry the more breathlessly that they might sooner rest and sit beside each other. At times they fell into sweet sile

on felled logs that lay across swift, brawling depths. The wilderness had no mystery for her, and no terrors, so she was ever at his side, or in advance, while her eyes, schooled in the tints of the forest, and more active than those of a bird, saw every moving thing, from the flash of a camp-robber's wing through some hidden glade to the inquisitive nodding of a fool hen where it perched high up against the bole of a spruce. They surprised a marten f

going to do?

iness, sir," she c

h she cut and trimmed a slender birch the thickness of h

ease! What

are a most bold and

orn," he declared. "It's th

ptuous, also, as I disco

umption is in

she smiled; "it was pre-em

hall gallop right off through the woods

ainbow trout, which she thrust into his coat while they were still wriggling. Then she as quickly put up her gear, and they resumed their journey, climbing more steeply now, until, when the sun was low, they quit t

y a smile to the youth's face. It had been her fancy as a little girl to speak in adjectives, ignoring many of her nouns, and its quaintness had s

ry smarts to come

y, you have tired me down." Removing his pack, he stre

our course lie n

irection-"which we go down till it joins another stream so, and right there we'll find old 'No Creek's' cabin, so! Won't they be s

How wonderf

fierce," she chided, "and al

rill that trickled down among the rocks near by. He made a

to littles," then forced him to vacate her domain and tur

t without upsetting, and how long she wished the sticks of cooking-wood. Then she banished him, as it were, and h

s the westward brim of the Yukon basin, the peaks were blue and ivory and gold in the last rays of the sun; while the open slopes behind and all about wore a carpet of fragrant short-lived flowers, nodding as if towards sleep, and over all was the hush of the l

is axe, for he found himself shaking as if

getting cold," s

l behind, with the wickiup joining it, formed an enclosure that lent them a certain air of privacy. They ate ravenously, and drank deep cupfuls of the unflavored tea. B

aid the girl, "that I shall never g

ry, little maid," he

very tired, but not the kind of tired that makes you want to go to bed. I want to talk, talk, ta

and realization and a readjustment of their relations would come after to-night, but this was the hour of illusion, and it must not be broken; therefore he began to tell her of other people and of his youth, making his tales as fanciful as possible, choosing deliberately to foster the merry humor in which they had been all day. He told her of his father, the crotchety old soldier, whose absurd sense of duty and whose elaborate Southern courtesy had become a byword in the South. He told her household tales that were prized like pieces of the Bu

sion of which he had learned to repress, inasmuch as it was a Dixie-land conceit and had been misunderstood when he went North to the Academy. In some this would have seemed bigoted and feminine, this immoderate admiration for his own

ople of yours have all been go

we've been soldiers. The army discipline is good for a man.

gan to lau

?" she said

what my strait-laced ancestors wo

the girl asked, in o

on. "They did worse things in their time, from w

thing bad," said Necia, holding hi

not," he

thing that has ever come into my life. Why, I simply can't hold it; I wa

'd better advertis

y n

publish the tale of this ex

often taken trips with Poleon, and been g

t a woman then,"

the same as I was yesterday, and I'll always be the same, just a wild little. Please don't ever l

tenderness than hunger in his tone now, as she looked up at him trus

he fire. "I seem to have come out of a gloomy house into the glory of a warm spring day, for m

he soldier, lightly, in an effort

ything, and yet I feel so saf

ger the more utterly this innocent maid yielded to him. It was as if he had ridden impulse with rough spurs in a fierce desire to distance certain voices, and in the first mad gallop had lost them, but now far back heard them calling

that it will never end. I know I shall love you always.

," he declared, impatiently. "I thought I knew my

, "but you must help me to overcome

conscience, deliberately and with a cautious wisdom beyond her years. Well, she had done it-and he swore to himself. Then he melted at the sight of her, crouched there against the shadows, follow

er, she tilted her head sidewis

a fierce you a

ed by the leaping blaze, and he cr

emain just what you are. You can't understand what this means to me, for I, too, was blinded, but the darkness

e removed her high-laced boots, and, taking her tiny feet, one in the palm of either hand, bowed his head over them and kissed them with a sense of her gracious purit

u for a while," he said.

leaned forward, closing her lids down with his lips. Her utter weariness was manifest,

e blood of spirited Southern women who had on occasion loved not wisely, according to Kentucky rumor, but only too well. Nevertheless, they were honest men and women, if over-sentimental, and had transmitted to him a heritage of chivalry and a high sense of honor and courage. Strange to say, this little, simple half-breed girl had revived this honor a

ondering at the hold this forest elf had gained upon him, wondering how it was that she had stolen into his heart and head and

, seeking the other side of the wickiup, covered h

awn when Necia

d, shivering violently and drawing clo

ired to drea

and see if you w

rning rays, the valleys misty and mystical. They made good progress on the summit, which was paved with barren rock and sparsely carpeted with short moss, while there was never a hint of insects to annoy them. Merrily they swung al

arty," he said once. "He may misunde

we love each other, that

Poleon and your father do. I think we had bette

g abruptly. "They will know it, anyhow,

he soldier insisted, "and we mustn't

ly. "If all this is going to end when we get t

he advanced in convincing her,

w best, and, anyhow, lit

here, sheltered in a grove of whispering firs, they found Lee's cabin nestling in a narrow, forked valley. Evidently the miner had selected a point on the main cree

ecia, gleefully. "We've beat

on the down-stream side of a tree and wrote thereon at Necia's dictation. When he had finished, she signed her name, and he witnessed it, then paced off four hundred and forty steps, where he squared a spruce-tree, which she marked: "Lower centre end stake of No. I below disco

aid. "It's just as good, and maybe better

to stake anyt

kle dying from her eyes. "You said you w

ernment land, and I am a part of the government, as it were. Then, too, in addition to the question of my right to do it, there would be the certainty of making enemies of your people, old

insisted on her locating two other claims for herself, one on ea

ne claim on a gulch," objected the

down one of those smaller streams, and we won't take any chances on which one it was. When a fellow plays

e couple returned to the cabin to get lunch and to await with some fore