"I should think that would do," he said, running it between his finger and thumb. Their hands met, and the touch of hers sent a quite unexpected thrill of physical delight tingling through his veins. He did not dare to look full at her for the moment, lest she should see it in his eyes. But he was conscious to the point of pain of her close proximity,--somehow conscious too--and that quite unconsciously and without any reasoning on the matter--that, in the twinkling of an eye, she was no longer simply a beautiful and charming girl, but had become for him the most beautiful and charming girl in all the world. His heart felt suddenly too big for his body. He could have taken her in his arms then and there, and crushed her to him, and smothered her with hot kisses. And he could no more have done it than he could have brained her with his axe. For she trusted him implicitly, and he was himself. He took a deep breath to give his heart more room, and bent to examine her twist. "It will do splendidly," he said, and she glanced quickly at him and wondered what had made that curious change in his voice. "How will you keep it rolled tight like that?" "I've been thinking. If I greased my fingers with some of that pork fat as I roll it, and roll it very tight, it will probably keep so. How long will you want it?" "As long as you can make it without too much trouble." "I can make it the full length of that silk as far as I see." "That will do admirably.... If I can make as good a hook as you have made a line we will have fish for dinner," and he went back to the fire, where, with his axe and his knife and two rusty nails lashed together at the top to act as tweezers, he was endeavouring to bend a portion of her needle into a hook. At the cost of some burns and cuts he managed at last to make something distantly resembling one. "It looks horrid," said The Girl when he showed it to her. "I shall be sorry for the fishes if they get that into them." "So shall I. But we'll not let them suffer long if they give us the chance." She was as eager as a child with a new toy to put their work to the test. So he cut some small pieces of pork and embedded his hook in one, and dropped it into the bed of mist over the side. And she leaned over, with her shoulder unconsciously against his,--but he felt it, and rejoiced in the feel as keenly as ever Macro did in his treasure-trove--and peered anxiously down at the line, of which she could see but a couple of feet, and waited impatiently for results. He put it into her hand, saying, "If anything comes of it you shall have the honour of catching our first fish," but he held on to the slack behind.