Uncas, the chipmunk, had that morning gone for a stroll in the forest. He had the spring fever. He had crossed Placid Brook, by a fallen log; he had climbed trees, hunted for last year's nuts, and fought battles of repartee with other chipmunks. About lunch time, thinking to return to Arthur and recount the tale of his wanderings, he smelled a smell of cooking and heard a sound of voices, one of which was familiar to him. He climbed a bowlder overlooking the clearing, and began to scold. Gay and Pritchard looked up. "My word!" said Pritchard, "what a bold little beggar." Now, to Gay, the figure of Uncas, well larded with regular meals, was not to be confounded with the slim little stripes of the spring woods. She knew him at once, and she spoke nonchalantly to Pritchard. "If you're a great deal in the woods," she said, "you scrape acquaintance with many of the inhabitants. That little pig and I are old friends. You embarrass him a little. He doesn't know you. If you weren't here, he'd come right into my lap and beg." Pritchard looked at her gravely. "Truly?" he said. "I think he will anyway," said Gay, and she made sounds to Uncas which reassured him and brought him presently on a tearing run for her lap. Here, when he had been fed, he yawned, stretched himself, and fell asleep. "Mowgli's sister!" said Pritchard reverently. "Child, are there the scars of wolves' teeth on your wrists and ankles?" "No, octogenarian," said Gay; "there aren't any marks of any kind. What time is it?" "It is half-past two." "Then you shall smoke a cigarette, while I wash dishes." She slid the complaining Uncas from her lap to the ground. "Unfortunately," said Pritchard, "I didn't bring a cigarette." "And you've been dying for a smoke all this time? Why don't you ask the guide for what you want?" "Have you such a thing?" "I have." "But you--you yourself don't--do you?" He looked troubled. "No," said Gay. "But my father was always forgetting his, and it made him so miserable I got into the habit of carrying a full case years ago whenever we went on expeditions. He used to be so surprised and delighted. Sometimes I think he used to forget his on purpose, so that I could have the triumph of producing mine." Pritchard smoked at ease. Gay "washed up." Uncas, roused once more from slumber by the call of one of his kind, shook himself and trotted off into the forest. Gay, scouring a pan, was beginning to feel that she had known Pritchard a long time. She had made him comfortable, cared for him in the wild woods, and the knowledge warmed her heart. Pritchard was saying to himself: "We like the same sort of things--why not each other?" "Miss Gay," he said aloud. "What?"