CHAPTER XIX Beyond all other joys and compensations for these three months in Smoky Land, there remained—a subject for humble thanks to the skies—the comradeship of Alice. Every day it made the struggle more worth while, his happiness more complete. She made periodical trips to his camps, bringing food for himself and salt for his sheep, and assisting him as he moved the flock from range to range. He counted the days of her absence, and the nights that she sat beside his fire simply opened a new world to him. They had a thousand things to tell each other: Hugh’s little victories over coyotes and cougars, the new tricks of Spot the flock leader, some little faithfulness on the part of Shep, the dog, and their exultation at the passing of the days. For if they passed the present month in safety, if Fargo and his gang did not rout them before October first, the victory was won. She cooked his meals and mended some of the holes in his soiled clothing, and her laugh rang with the bells of fairyland over their silent camp. They had serious moments in which—with far-reaching intimacy—they told each other their own secret thoughts and philosophies of life—sober talk such as was never heard in the rooms of the Greenwood Club. For the first time in his life Hugh had really known self-expression. The inmost springs of his nature flowed forth. And he was constantly amazed and delighted by the girl’s ideas and points of view. There was nothing particularly modern about them. In fact, Hugh thought that they had passed from the earth in his grandmother’s time. Of course they were trite, perhaps they could have been proven ridiculous by the logic of a realist, and the only reason she had for them was the impulse of her own conscience; yet Hugh found himself staring at her as if she were a being from another planet. But Hugh’s amazement was due to his own lack of knowledge of the heart of humanity. He would have been surprised to know that ninety out of every hundred girls, east and west and south and north, had the same illogical conscience, the same high heart, the same ideals. Although he would have tumbled over backward if any one had told him so, Hugh just hadn’t been around. He had known but one little circle, and heretofore he hadn’t been able to see outside it. Alice was girlish, spontaneous, unaffected to the last degree. Sometimes they romped and raced like children about their camp fire. They exulted over their meals, they told high secrets, they tingled and thrilled in the mystery of the nights. She had a businesslike, matter-of-fact way in going about her tasks that delighted the man past words. She was as clean and sweet and unspoiled as the mountain flowers that grew about her,—but wholly able to take care of herself. As she camped beside the flocks her pistol was always in reach of her hand. And the very ideas that Hugh so loved in her simply filled his nights with horror.