Gods Country--And the Woman | Page 6

now that made her completely unafraid.
"Why?" he asked. "Listen, and I will tell you. Four years ago I came up
into this country from down there--the world they call Civilization. I
came up with every ideal and every dream I ever had broken and
crushed. And up here I found God's Country. I found new ideals and
new dreams. I am going back with them. But they can never be broken
as the others were--because--now--I have found something that will
make them live. And that something is YOU! Don't let my words
startle you. I mean them to be as pure as the sun that shines over our
heads. If I leave you now--if I never see you again--you will have filled
this wonderful world for me. And if I could do something to prove
this--to make you happier--why, I'd thank God for having sent me
ashore to cook a mess of prunes."
He released her hand, and stepped back from her.
"That is why you should tell me," he finished.

A swift change had come into her eyes and face. She was breathing
quickly. He saw the sudden throbbing of her throat. A flush of colour
had mounted into her cheeks. Her lips were parted, her eyes shone like
stars.
"You would do a great deal for me?" she questioned breathlessly. "A
great deal--and like--A MAN?"
"Yes."
"A MAN--one of God's men?" she repeated.
He bowed his head.
Slowly, so slowly that she scarcely seemed to move, she drew nearer to
him.
"And when you had done this you would be willing to go away, to
promise never to see me again, to ask no reward? You would swear
that?"
Her hand touched his arm. Her breath came tense and fast as she waited
for him to answer. "If you wished it, yes," he said.
"I almost believe," he heard, as if she were speaking the words to
herself. She turned to him again, and something of faith, of hope
transfigured her face.
"Return to your fire and your prunes," she said quickly, and the
sunlight of a smile passed over her lips. "Then, half an hour from now,
come up the coulee to the turn in the rocks. You will find me there."
She bent quickly and picked up the little bag and the brush from the
sand. Without looking at him again she sped swiftly beyond the big
rock, and Philip's last vision of her was the radiant glory of her hair as
it rippled cloudlike behind her in the sunlight.
CHAPTER THREE

That he had actually passed through the experience of the last few
minutes, that it was a reality and not some beautiful phantasm of the
red and gold world which again lay quiet and lifeless about him, Philip
could scarcely convince himself as he made his way back to the canoe
and the fire. The discovery of this girl, buried six hundred miles in a
wilderness that was almost a terra incognita to the white man, was
sufficient to bewilder him. And only now, as he kicked the burning
embers from under the pails, and looked at his watch to time himself,
did he begin to realize that he had not sensed a hundredth part of the
miracle of it.
Now that he was alone, question after question leapt unanswered
through his mind, and every vein in his body throbbed with strange
excitement. Not for an instant did he doubt what she had said. This
world--the forests about him, the lakes, the blue skies above, were her
home. And yet, struggling vainly for a solution of the mystery, he told
himself in the next breath that this could not be possible. Her voice had
revealed nothing of the wilderness --except in its sweetness. Not a
break had marred the purity of her speech. She had risen before him
like the queen of some wonderful kingdom, and not like a forest girl.
And in her face he had seen the soul of one who had looked upon the
world as the world lived outside of its forest walls. Yet he believed her.
This was her home. Her hair, her eyes, the flowerlike lithesomeness of
her beautiful body--and something more, something that he could not
see but which he could FEEL in her presence, told him that this was so.
This wonder-world about him was her home. But why-- how?
He seated himself on a rock, holding the open watch in his hand. Of
one thing he was sure. She was oppressed by a strange fear. It was not
the fear of being alone, of being lost, of some happen- chance peril that
she might fancy was threatening her. It was a deeper, bigger thing than
that. And she had confessed to him--not wholly, but enough to