A rabbit hopped away among the trees beyond them, and Carl, following its trail, read to her the forest hieroglyphics--tracks of rabbit and chipmunk and crow, of field-mouse and house-cat, in the snow-paved city of night animals with its edifices of twiggy underbrush. The setting sun was overclouded, now; the air sharp; the grove uneasily quiet. Branches, contracting in the returning cold, ticked like a solemn clock of the woodland; and about them slunk the homeless mysteries that, at twilight, revisit even the tiniest forest, to wail of the perished wilderness. "I know there's Indians sneaking along in there," she whispered, "and wolves and outlaws; and maybe a Hudson Bay factor coming, in a red Mackinaw coat." "And maybe a mounted policeman and a lost girl." "Saying which," remarked Ruth, "the brave young man undid his pack and disclosed to the admiring eyes of the hungry lass--meaning me, especially the 'hungry'--the wonders of his pack, which she had been covertly eying amid all the perils of the afternoon." Carl did not know it, but all his life he had been seeking a girl who would, without apologetic explanation, begin a story with herself and him for its characters. He instantly continued her tale: "And from the pack the brave young hero, whose new Norfolk jacket she admired such a lot--as I said, from the pack he pulled two clammy, blue, hard-boiled eggs and a thermos bottle filled with tea into which I've probably forgotten to put any sugar." "And then she stabbed him and went swiftly home!" Ruth concluded the narration.... "Don't be frivolous about food. Just one hard-boiled egg and you perish! None of these gentle 'convenient' shoe-box picnics for me. Of course I ought to pretend that I have a bird-like appetite, but as a matter of fact I could devour an English mutton-chop, four kidneys, and two hot sausages, and then some plum-pudding and a box of chocolates, assorted." "If this were a story," said Carl, knocking the crusted snow from dead branches and dragging them toward the center of a small clearing, "the young hero from Joralemon would now remind the city gal that 'tis only among God's free hills that you can get an appetite, and then the author would say, 'Nothing had ever tasted so good as those trout, yanked from the brook and cooked to a turn on the sizzling coals. She looked at the stalwart young man, so skilfully frying the flapjacks, and contrasted him with the effeminate fops she had met on Fifth Avenue.'... But meanwhile, squaw, you'd better tear some good dry twigs off this bush for kindling."