Gradually the stream diminished, and its bowldered bed became more difficult to traverse, until, assuming the airs of a leader, the girl commanded him to lay off his pack, at which he pretended to obey mutinously, though thrilling with the keenest delight at his own submission.
"What are you going to do ?" he inquired.
"Mind your own business, sir," she commanded, sternly.
From her belt she drew a little hunting-knife, with which she cut and trimmed a slender birch the thickness of his thumb, whereupon he pretended great fright, and said: "Please! please! What have I done ?" "A great deal! You are a most bold and stubborn creature." "All pack animals are stubborn," he declared.

"It's the only privilege they have." "You are much too presumptuous, also, as I discovered in your quarters." "My only presumption is in loving you." "That was not presumption," she smiled; "it was pre-emption.

You must be punished." "I shall run away," he threatened.

"I shall gallop right off through the woods and--begin to eat grass.

I am very wild." As she talked she drew from her pocket a spool of line, and took a fly-hook from her hat; then, in a trice, she had rigged a fishing-rod, and, creeping out upon a ledge, she whipped the pool below of a half-dozen rainbow trout, which she thrust into his coat while they were still wriggling.