"Oh, don't go away and leave me alone," pleaded the girl, forgetting that for two nights and days she had braved the wilderness single-handed.
"We'll go together then, princess," he replied, smiling. It was now late in the afternoon, and almost dark, so they set about dinner, which consisted of fish and tea. During the meal, Donald regarded Jean for a little in quizzical silence.
"I'm glad Mr. Gates, the missionary, is with your father," he said, at last.
"I'm not, particularly; he's only in the way, and wants to preach all the time, when there's fighting to be done. Why are you glad?"
"Just for the convenience of the thing, that's all. When we join the men from Fort Severn, he can marry us at once."
"Well, well, young man!" replied the girl, severely. "I can't say that we have to rush into matrimony the moment we perceive a cassock. Personally, next June at the fort, when the _brigades_ have come down, and there are flowers, and so forth, I shall be more ready to talk the matter over with you." She looked at him with eyebrows lifted in mock condescension while she stirred the fish with a tin spoon.
Donald, in the first bliss of happiness realized, leaned over to kiss her, but this time the eyes that met his were serious. He took the upraised hand in his banteringly, but listened to what she said, nevertheless.
"Donald, of course we have to be a little foolish sometimes, but I must ask you to agree with me that we only be good friends after--oh, say three o'clock in the afternoon. From then on, no foolishness, it will spare us a lot."
Donald looked at the girl, keenly surprised. The same thought had been in his mind, but he had not dared express it for fear of having to entangle himself in impossible explanations. But, now, her woman's intuition felt the thing he knew, that love, fierce, burning, desirous, comes in the northland as well as in the tropics. With a few words, they made their rule and he dropped her hand.
"But, to return to the preacher," he resumed presently, as they had more fish, "I think it will be better for all hands, if we marry at once. This little honeyless honeymoon won't stand the strain of months, dearest, for in that time it will have been discussed from Labrador to the Columbia, and from the Coppermine to Lake Superior, and I don't want you on the tongues of men at all. I am glad you love me, for now our marriage has to be."