Part 33 (2/2)
”We get under a balsam or a spruce or a thick cedar”
A little later they stood beside the fire It was growing dusk The distant snow-ridge iftly fading into a pale and ghostly sheet in the gray glooe Aldous knew that MacDonald was toiling
Joanne put her hands to his shoulders
”Are you sorry--so very, very sorry that you let hed softly, drawing her to him ”You came!”
”And are you sorry?”
”No”
It was deliciously sweet to have her tilt up her head and put her soft lips to his, and it was still sweeter when her tender hands stroked his cheeks, and eyes and lips s her hair, with her face laying warainst hi darkness of the spruce and cedar copses Joanne herself had piled wood on the fire, and in its glow they were dangerously illu his cheek
”When will Donald return?” she asked
”Probably not until late,” he replied, wondering what it was that had set a stone rolling down the side of the mountain nearest to them ”He hunted until dark, and may wait for the moon to come up before he returns”
”John----”
”Yes, dear?----” And mentally he measured the distance to the nearest clump of ti fire, and sit down on the pannier canvases”
His eyes were still on the ti what a ht do at that space He et, and MacDonald was probably severalabout the fire,” he said ”We must put it out, Joanne
There are reasons e should not let it burn For one thing, the sa”
Her hands lay still against his cheek
”I--understand, John,” she replied quickly, and there was the sotten Weembers remained where the fire had been He had spread out the pannier canvases, and now he seated hiled close to him
”It is much nicer in the dark,” she whispered, and her arainst his hand ”Are you just a little ashamed of me, John?”
”Ashamed? Good heaven----”
”Because,” she interrupted him, ”we have known each other such a very short time, and I have allowed myself to become so very, very well acquainted with you It has all been so delightfully sudden, and strange, and I am--just as happy as I can be You don't think it is is to my husband, John--even if I have only known hi her so closely in his arms that for a fewfor breath His brain was afire with the joyous madness of possession Never had woman come to man more sweetly than Joanne had coainst hie to a hundred Quades and Culver Ranns hiding in the darkness of thetime he held her nestled close in his arms, and at intervals there were silences between thelad tue silence that caht
It was their first hour alone--of utter oblivion to all else but themselves; to Joanne the first sacrament hour of her wifehood, to hi In that hour their souls became one, and when at last they rose to their feet, and theof the ht, there was in Joanne's face a tenderness and a gentle glory that el He led her to the tepee, and lighted a candle for her, and at the last, with the sweet de it, she pursed up her lips to be kissed good-night
And when he had tied the tent-flap behind her, he took his rifle and sat doith it across his knees in the deep black shadow of a spruce, and waited and listened for the co of Donald MacDonald