Ben drew a long breath. It was good to be home. He had not only found his forests, just as he had left them, but now again he was among the forest people. This girl was of his own breed, not a stranger; her standards were his; she was a woods girl no less than he was a woodsman. It is good to be among one's own people, those who can follow through and understand. She too knew the urge of unbridled vitality and spirit, common to all the woods children; and life's vivid meaning was her inheritance, no less than his. Her arms and lips were warm from fast-flowing blood, her nerves were vibrant and singing like his own. A virgin still, her eyes were tender with the warmheartedness that is such a dominant trait of frontier peoples; but what fire, what passion might burn in them to-morrow! They were dark, lovely eyes, rather somber now in their earnestness, seeming shadowed by the dark shadows of the spruce themselves. No human face had ever given him such an image of beauty as that of this dark-eyed forest child before him. Yet she was not piquant, demure, like the girls he had met in France; not stylish and sophisticated like those of the great cities he had visited since his return. Her garb became her: simple, not holding the eye in itself but calling attention to the brunette beauty of her throat and face, the warm redness of her childish mouth, and the brown, warm color of her arms. She had dark, waving hair, lovely to touch, wistful red lips. Because he was the woodsman, now and always, he marked with pleasure that there was no indication of ill-health or physical weakness about her. Her body was lithe and strong, with the grace of the wild creatures. It would be good to know her, and walk beside her in the tree aisles. All manner of delectable possibilities occurred to him. But all at once he checked his dreams with an iron will. There must be no thought of women in his life--for now. He still had his way to make. A few hours more would find him plunging deeper into the forest, perhaps never to see her again. He felt an all-pervading sense of regret. "There's nothing I can say--to thank you," the girl was murmuring. "I never saw anything like it; it was just as if the wolf understood every word you said." "Old Hiram had him pretty well trained, I suspect." The man's eyes fell to the shaggy form at his feet. "I'm glad I happened along Miss--" "Miss Neilson," the girl prompted him. "Beatrice Neilson. I live here." Neilson! His mind seemed to leap and catch at the name. Just that day he had heard it from the lips of the merchant. And this was the house next door where dwelt his fellow traveler for the morrow. "Then it's your father--or brother--who's going to the Yuga--" "No," the girl answered doubtfully. "My father is already there. I'm here alone--" Then the gray eyes lighted and a smile broke about Ben's lips. Few times in his life had he smiled in quite this vivid way.