They had been ten days in the mountains when, one evening, sitting
beside him in this way, she said, with that adorable and almost childish
ingenuousness which he loved in her:
"It will be nice to have Father Roland marry us, _Sakewawin_!" And
before he could answer, she added: "I will keep house for you two at the
Chateau."
He had been thinking a great deal about it.
"But if your mother should live down there--among the cities?" he asked.
She shivered a little, and nestled to him.
"I wouldn't like it, _Sakewawin_--not for long. I love _this_--the
forest, the mountains, the skies." And then, suddenly she caught
herself, and added quickly: "But anywhere--_anywhere_--if you are there,
_Sakewawin_!"
"I too, love the forests, the mountains, and the skies," he whispered.
"We will have them with us always, little comrade."
It was the fourteenth day when they descended the eastern slopes of the
Divide, and he knew that they were not far from the Kwadocha and the
Finley. Their fifteenth night they camped where he and the Butterfly's
lover had built a noonday fire; and this night, though it was warm and
glorious with a full moon, the Girl was possessed of a desire to have a
fire of their own, and she helped to add fuel to it until the flames
leaped high up into the shadows of the spruce, and drove them far back
with its heat.
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