Always when he left her he returned before the end of the time she had promised to wait for him. And always he sent, as herald of his approach, his golden voice forward to her. At times in an echoing shout. More than once in an outburst of singing which thrilled her strangely. What a voice the man had! And once, when he had elected to bathe in the starlight, he sent down to her that cry which she had heard the first time from the door of Babe Deveril's cabin in Big Pine ... the wild, fierce call of the timber-wolf which, despite her naming herself "fool," sent a shiver into her blood.... Once this happened: He had left her in the forenoon, accepting her word that she would not stir until high noon. Usually he came well in advance; this time she watched the climbing sun and the creeping shade and suddenly her heart began its wild beating; it was almost noon and he was not here; no sound of his coming. When he shouted to her and then came rushing into camp, he found that she had been working frenziedly with a stick and a stone; driving the sliver of wood like a stake into the ground.... She started up, her face crimson. "Well?" he said, his hands on his hips, staring down at her. "What's that?" She blurted out the explanation and then was angry with herself for telling him. She had meant to stay until the tip end of the giant pine's shadow fell where it marked midday; she had meant there to drive in her stake; for him it would be a marker, an assurance from her that she had kept her word with him, that she had waited as she had promised to wait ... that then, scorning him, she had snatched at her rights and had fled! His first impulse was toward laughter. And then, strangely quiet, he stood looking at her and she saw a gathering mist in his eyes! "Girl!" he muttered. "Oh, girl!... God, I love you!" "I hate you...." ... How many times had she cried out in those words! And how much of that did she mean? In her heart, in her soul ... in the most hidden recesses of her most hidden being?