She was a daughter of the forests, and its mark was on her. To-night the same moon that, a thousand miles to the south, was lighting the way for Ben and Ezram on their northern journey, shone on her as she hastened down the long, shadowed street toward her father's shack, revealing her forest parentage for all to see. The quality could be discerned in her very carriage--swift and graceful and silent--vaguely suggesting that of the wild creatures themselves. But there was no coarseness or ruggedness about her face and form such as superficial observation might have expected. Physically she was like a deer, strong, straight-limbed, graceful, slender rather than buxom, dainty of hands and feet. A perfect constitution and healthful surroundings had done all this. And good fairies had worked further magic: as she passed beneath the light at the door of the rude hotel there was revealed an unquestioned and rather startling facial beauty. It seemed hardly fitting in this stern, rough land--the soft contour and delicacy of the girl's features. It had come straight from her mother, a woman who, in gold-rush days, had been the acknowledged beauty of the province. Nor was it merely the attractive, animal beauty that is so often seen in healthy, rural girls. Rather its loveliness was of a mysterious, haunting kind that one associates with old legends and far distant lands. Perhaps its particular appeal lay in her eyes. They seemed to be quite marvelously deep and clear, so darkly gray that they looked black in certain lights, and they were so shadowed and pensive that sometimes they gave the image of actual sadness. For all the isolation of her home she was no stranger to romance; but the romance that was to be seen, like a gentleness, in her face was that of the great, shadowed forest in which she dwelt. Pensive, wistful, enthralled in a dreamy sadness,--what could be nearer the tone and pitch of the northern forest itself? There might have been also depths of latent passion such as is known to all who live the full, strong life of the woods. The lines were soft about her lips and eyes, indicating a marked sweetness and tenderness of nature; but these traits did not in the least deny her parentage. No one but the woodsman knows how gentle, how hospitably tender, the forest may be at times. She had fine, dark straight brows that served to darken her eyes, dark brown hair waving enough to soften every line of her face, a girlish throat and a red mouth surprisingly tender and childish. As might have been expected her garb was neither rich nor smart, but it was pretty and well made and evidently fitted for her life: a loose "middy," blue skirt, woolen stockings and rather solid little boots. As she passed the door of the hotel one of the younger men who had been lounging about the stove strode out and accosted her. She half-turned, recognized his face in the lamplight, and frankly recoiled.