He would be gone all day, of course, and she must depend upon her own exertions. First she filled the little saucepan with water and put it between the two flat stones that served for its hearth, and then took from the creel two fish that he had cleaned the night before. Half way to the fire she paused, her crutch in mid-air, balancing herself safely without its aid. She peered to right and left among the branches and then put the fish back into the creel in quick decision.
A bath! She had been longing for it for two days! Her resolution made, she took up her crutch and hobbled down the stream, turning her head back over her shoulder in the direction of the camp as if she still feared she might have misread the birch-bark message. Warm with expectancy and the delight of the venture, she found a sheltered pool beneath the dense foliage and bathed her lithe young body in the icy water. Gasping for breath she splashed across the sandy pool and back again with half uttered cries of delight; and the Naiads and Oreads flitted fearfully among the trees whispering and peering cautiously at the slim white creature which had intruded so fearlessly upon their secret preserves. The water was cold! Oh, so cold! With one last plunge which set her teeth chattering, the bather clambered up the bank into the sunlight chilled to the bone, but glowing suddenly with the swift rush of new blood along her rosy limbs. Upright upon the bank she moved vigorously back and forth, and releasing her hair, let it clothe and warm her, while she stood drying, her face toward the sun. Apollo looked with favor on this Clytië and sent his warmest rays that she might not have gazed at him in vain.
A miracle had happened to her ankle, too, for she moved quite without pain. Dressing and making her way back to the fire, using her crutch only as a staff, she gathered cedar by the way, for her morning tea. Her mentor had made some of it for her the night before and her lips twisted at the thought of drinking it again; but the essence of the woods, their balsam, their fragrance, their elixir had permeated her and even this bitter physic seemed palatable now. She remembered his couplet last night:
A quart of arbor-vitæ
To make you big and mighty.
At the fire she spitted her fish, leaning back against the log, her hair drying in the sun and wind, the warm fire bringing a warm glow throughout her body. She ate and then stretched her arms toward the kindly trees. It was good to be strong and young, with life just ripening. At that moment it did not matter just what was to become of her. She was sure that she no longer felt any uneasiness as to the end of her adventure. Her guardian had gone to find a way out. He would come back to-night. In time she would go back to camp. She didn’t care when—the present seemed sufficient.
In all ways save one—she had no mirror. She combed her hair with her back comb and braided it carefully with fingers long accustomed. Instinct demanded that she look at her face; circumstance refused her the privilege, for of Vanity Boxes she had none. And, when, like Narcissus, she knelt at the brink of the pool and looked into its depths, the water was full of iridescent wrinkles and she only saw the mocking pebbles upon the bottom, having not only her labor, but a wetting for her pains. But she accepted the reproof calmly and finished her toilet secundum naturam.
The larder was full, but she fished again—up stream this time, for evening might bring another mouth to feed. The morning dragged wearily enough and she came back to her fire early, with but four fish to her credit account. She hung the creel in its accustomed place and resumed her seat by the fire, her look moving restlessly from one object to another. At last it fell upon his coat which she had left on the couch in the shelter. She got up, brought it forth into the light and brushed it carefully. Several objects fell from its pockets—a tobacco pouch nearly empty, a disreputable and badly charred briarwood pipe and some papers. She picked up the objects one by one and put them back. As she did so her eye caught the superscription of a letter. She drew it forth quickly and examined it again as though she had not been certain that she had read it correctly; then the other envelope, scanning them both eagerly. They were inscribed with the same name and address—all written with the same feminine scrawl, and the paper smelt of heliotrope. She held them in her fingers a moment, her lips compressed, her brow thoughtful and then abruptly thrust them into the pocket again and put the coat into the shelter.
She sat for a long while, her chin in her hand, looking into the ashes of the fire. A cloud moved slowly across the face of the sun, and its shadow darkened the glade. A hush fell upon the trees as though all living things had stopped to listen. The girl glanced at the sky and saw that the heavens were dark with the portent of a storm, when some new thought suddenly struck her, for she rose quickly, her look moving from the shack to the trees beside it, a pine and a maple tree, measuring the distance and the ground between them. Of one thing she was now certain, another shelter must be built at once.
Her crutch in her hand she made her way into the thicket, her small pearl handled knife clutched resolutely in her palm, attacking vigorously the first straight limb within reach. At the end of ten minutes she had cut only half way through it, and her tender hands were red and blistered. But she put her weight on the bough and snapped it, cutting at last through the tough fibers and dragging it into the open. Ten minutes more of cutting at the twigs and her roof joist was in position. Her next attempt was unfortunate; for she had hardly begun to cut a notch in the branch she had selected, when the knife-blade broke and the handle twisted in her hand, the jagged edge cutting a gash in her thumb. She cried out with pain, dropping the knife from trembling fingers. It was not a serious wound, but the few drops of blood made her think it so; and, pale and a little frightened, she made her way to the stream and dipped it into the cooling water, bathing and bandaging it with her handkerchief.
She had learned something. The woods were only friendly to those who knew how to cope with them. She did not know how to cope with them, and at this moment hated them blindly. There seemed to be nothing left but to sit by the fire and have a cry. This done, she felt better, but she made no further attempt to build the hut.
The sky darkened rapidly and a few drops of rain pattered noisily among the dry leaves. She had no means of learning the hour of the day. She guessed that it would soon be time to prepare supper, but for a long while she did not move. She was conquered by the inevitable facts of nature and her eyes plaintively regarded the beginnings of the house which might have been, but was not.
The fire, like her spirits of the morning, had sunk. But she rose now, her face set in hard little lines of determination, and laid on fresh logs. As the cheerful flames arose her spirits kindled, too, and she lifted the creels from the limb and sat down again in her accustomed place to prepare the scanty meal. Her eyes sought the up-country trail more frequently and more anxiously, but the shadows of the night had fallen thickly before she decided to cook her solitary meal. She was not hungry as she had been in the morning and even the odor of the cooking fish was not appetizing. She only cooked because cooking at this time seemed part of the established order of things and because cooking was something that belonged to the things that she could do.
She ate mechanically, rose and washed her utensils without interest. The rain was falling steadily; but she did not seem to care, and only when she had finished her tasks did she seek the shelter of the hut. Even then she stood leaning against the young birch-tree looking out at the darkness and listening, her brows puckered in tiny wrinkles of worry. At last with a sigh, she sank on her balsam bed and closed her eyes.
The night was sombrous and the rain had been falling for an hour. The girl sat beneath the shelter of her projecting eave upon the ground, where she might look out up the stream, her chin on her knees, her hands clasped about her ankles, watching the rain drops fall glistening into the circle of firelight and hiss spitefully among the fretting flames. She had been crying again and her eyes were dark with apprehension. Her hair hung in moist wisps about her brow and temples and her lips were drawn in plaintive lines. She listened intently. A dead branch in the distance cracked and fell. She started up and peered out for the hundredth time in the direction from which she might expect his approach. Only the soft patter of the rain on the soaked foliage and the ominous blackness