Of course Ambrose waited, it having always been his custom to give way to Miner in small things, and, as he had grown unaccountably weary, stretched himself full length on the ground, and there a moment later the man felt himself in the grip of the primal instinct that all big men and some big women know. His will kept his long clean body still, yet everything else in him called out the strong man's right over the weak. The earth that mothered him proved it in all her moods. And yet there only a few paces ahead of him Miner was holding Emily in his arms. One swift rush and--here Ambrose checked his vision, for he would not stir one foot. Therefore, at first, the slight crackling noise at some little distance off made no impression upon him, but almost at once and without his own volition his long, sensitive nose sniffed the odour of smoke somewhere in the woods. The next instant a flame shot up in the air and Ambrose with it, for the flame came directly from the neighbourhood of Emily's cottage. "Lord!" murmured Ambrose as he ran, "Em'ly's house is afire, and she hasn't no one but a little runt like Miner to look after her." CHAPTER XIII THE SURPRISE PARTY HE RAN straight on into--Emily. The girl, having been attracted by the light back of her cabin, had just come out into her yard and so saw the impossible figure flying toward her, and in all the world there was never but one other man so homely and so beautiful. "I--I thought your house was afire," Ambrose announced huskily. He had stopped so close to the girl that she caught both his hands in hers, pressing one for an instant against her cheek. "Something _is_ burning in the woods; it doesn't matter," she answered; "but, oh, Ambrose, you have been such a long time in coming to me!" The girl's eyes were shining, her figure perfectly distinct, and she wore the primrose dress, yet Ambrose knowing this did not believe he had dared look at her. "I haven't come to you now," he defended stoutly; "I was just afeard to trust you to Miner in a fire." Then Emily laughed the low understanding laugh that was her greatest charm, and all the while drawing her companion with her toward their bench in front of her door, she sat down beside him, still keeping one hand in his gently resisting fingers; there seemed to be no fear and no shyness about Emily to-night; she was too exquisitely a thing of love. "Yet you were willing to trust my life and soul and everything there is about me to Miner," she said slowly. "Ah, isn't that like a man! But, dear, Miner hasn't been near me since early this afternoon," she continued, "and then he came for such a funny Miner reason. He wanted to tell me that if ever I'd thought he had any leaning toward me, it wasn't in no ways true. Because so far as _he_ could see there wasn't nothin' a woman could be or do that could make up for her troublesomeness."